By Lexie Brada
Before we get into any of the skills you need for these jobs, we need to talk about a pair of terms that you’ll hear very often in this article and in the hiring world, and if you don’t already know, make it a goal to add them to your vocabulary:
Hard Skills and Soft Skills.
A ‘hard skill’ vs a ‘soft skill’ is not talking about the theoretical difficultness of mastering these skills. Some hard skills can be very easy to learn and some soft skills can be incredibly difficult to master.
Rather, when one talks about ‘hard skills’ and ‘soft skills’, they’re comparing the way you learn these skills, or how you get the knowledge.
Still confused? No worries, let’s break it down.
Hard Skills
Hard skills are the qualifications on your resume that get your foot in the door. You can’t be born with a hard skill. Instead, hard skills are learned, either through work, education, or other training. Hard skills are also measurable. In fact, some interview processes can include testing of these skills, such as Excel or coding, so Hiring Managers can get a quantifiable evaluation of your skills.
The hard skills you’ll need are going to be specific toward your career field, since these skills encompass what you’ll be using in your day-to-day.
Soft Skills
Soft skills are the skills that are much harder to define and harder to teach, but they are just as important in your career. If hard skills are what you’ll do, soft skills define how and how well you’ll do it. For example, say you’re highly skilled in Tableau, a data visualization tool used to present data and finding through visual representation. In order to best present insights to stakeholders and other teams, you will also need strong communication and storytelling skills.
The average person spends around 90,000 hours at their job, so you’ll be around your coworkers more than family. Having great soft skills not only makes you better at your job, but it also makes you an enjoyable person to work with, which means people will want to work with you and see you succeed. In fact, a LinkedIn survey shows that 57% of employers value soft skills over hard ones.
Another reason soft skills are valued is that they transfer easily from job to job. Companies may use a different development stack, a new mailing service, or even a different project management system, but being able to communicate and adapt under pressure will start adding value on day one.
Now that we know what a ‘hard skill’ and a ‘soft skill’ is, let’s take a look at what the job itself entails, which of these skills you’ll need, and some places to gain these skills.
Community Management
A Day in the Life
Community Managers are similar to Social Media Managers. However, as their title implies, Community Managers are much more community-centered. While both roles have overlapping responsibilities, the goals of each are different. Social Media Managers attempt to grow the brand’s reach and following, while Community Managers are dedicated to growing engagement and building brand awareness.
Work Responsibilities
- Manage, curate, and design programs to expand a company's online community
- Work cross-functionally with teams in Marketing, PR, Customer Success, Sales, Partnerships, Customer Education, and Product to source content and discussion topics within the community and ensure brand alignment
- Drive engagement within the customer community
- Respond to community comments directly, as well as source thought leadership from within the company to thoughtfully engage within community discussions
- Develop strong and meaningful connections with customers
- Track and report on community trends, key findings, and KPIs to stakeholders
Hard Skills
- Sprinklr / Netbase
- Social Media Acumen
- Social Media Analytic Tools (Hootsuite/Buffer)
- ROI (Return on Investment) Data Analysis
- Reporting Analytics
- Key Metric Analysis
- Writing
Soft Skills
- Strategy/Planning
- Empathy
- Personable
- Listening
- Trendspotting
- Problem Solving
- Decision Making
- Creativity
- Social Charisma
Where to get these hard skills?
- Meta Community Manager Online Courses (Free)
- The Community Roundtable Training
- Introduction to Online Community Management ($29.99)
- Sprinklr Training
- Hootsuite Academy
- Big Data and Data Analytics ROI Training ‘
- Business Writing
Interested in exploring this job, the skills it takes to break into this career, or still looking for that perfect fit in the workforce? Download the Pathmatch app to discover companies that match your interests, strengths, and goals! Pathmatch can help find the perfect career fit for you!
