Over a Decade in Community: How Carmen Leans into Her Strength

"I find that even in books that are completely unrelated to community building, I’ll sometimes find the answer to whatever issue I’m facing or even just some inspiring..."

Behind every thriving community is a a human with emotions and things to deal with. Welcome to Community Musings: Conversations. — a series dedicated to navigating the mental and emotional rollercoaster of building a career in community.

Community Coach Carmen joins me to talk about her journey into community management, dealing with the highs and lows, and much more.

Carmen has been a valuable part of my professional network for two years now. Her dedication to community is inspiring, and is evident in her informative newsletter, YouTube videos, and consistent social media presence. While chatting with her, I was humbled to learn that she has been in this space for over 10 years.

From running an e-commerce business to consulting for communities, her versatility is truly amazing.

Here is her story.

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I’ve done this now for over 10 years.

Carmen: I actually stumbled into community management by accident! I’m sure a lot of people can relate to that. I had an E-commerce business with zero dollars to spend on marketing at the time. It was just a startup and because I had limited resources, I joined a large community on Facebook group that had a large number of my potential customers in the community and got active in it. At the time, Facebook groups were relatively new as a concept and weren’t something people had thought about strategically for business. The admins of the group weren’t paying much attention to how toxic the group had become and the whole experience was just terrible for community members.

I felt like I could do it better because I cared about the people that were in there and understood them better. So, I created my community which spun off from that Facebook group and I managed to build that very quickly to about 5,000 members, and it was only in one country as well.

It was something that I built because I was passionate about the people and I was passionate about building a community that was not toxic. I felt like I could approach that problem by building a community that had things like roles and ethics around how members should behave and I was very transparent about that.

That’s how I stumbled into and fell in love with community management.

…you will have the highs and lows but you don’t have to do it alone.

Carmen: In terms of maintaining my self-worth and professional identity, I was very fortunate that with the first community that I built, I had achieved a lot. I used that community to achieve specific business goals for myself and that’s something I would recommend to others when they’re trying to build their own professional identity.

What are your strengths?

For me, my strength is figuring out how community can translate into business results; and with that first community I built, I sold out my products for my E-commerce store with free marketing. So when I was looking to move jobs and really start my professional community management career, I leaned into my strength.

In terms of ways that I navigated the negative feelings, I amassed myself with a lot of other community managers. Finding other people who are equally passionate about what you’re doing and what you’re trying to achieve, I think really helps, and that is the power of community, right?

I’ve never felt like switching careers once I dived deep into community management. It’s been over 10 years now of me being in community management, that’s a record for me. I’ve enjoyed even the lows.

There are going to be moments in your community management career when it is tough

Carmen: You may be trying to prove your worth to your boss, you may just have a very difficult day, you may be putting in all your effort and nobody else seems to be as excited, or you may have members that are not engaging and you’re trying to figure it out.

One recommendation that I have is to create a positivity folder or call it a ‘keep going’ folder. In that folder, include a document around the purpose of your community (why you’re creating it, the big goals you want to achieve, the big problems you’re trying to solve), and also include the screenshots of any great days that you’ve had in your community. So if a member told you that their life has changed from your community, or you’ve really helped them out with something, document that because they will help when you’re having those down days.

You can also add all those positive moments into a slide, especially at the end of the year, and show your boss or manager that your community is actually having a positive impact and it goes beyond metrics and numbers. Of course the metrics matter but I have found that the slides full of positivity is the human element, and it can help you drive the message that your community is having an impact on the business or whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve.

Another way you can navigate days where you just don’t feel like it is to not push yourself. If you have gone through your positivity folder and it’s not hitting you right and you just need to walk away for a bit, don’t be afraid to take that time out for yourself. I actually find going for a walk to be very beneficial because it gives you time to clear your head and think about the problem or whatever it is that you’re facing in a different light. It won’t feel so big a problem when you’ve had some time to think.

You could go for some exercise as well, like going to the gym if that helps, maybe reading a book, something completely unrelated. The funny thing is I love to read fiction and nonfiction books, and I find that even in books that are completely unrelated to community building, I’ll sometimes find the answer to whatever issue I’m facing or even just some inspiring quote about community building from completely unrelated materials. When I find these gems, it just gives me that moment of inspiration and I feel that I’ve got the energy again to go back to whatever that I was facing.

Have systems and processes in place to show up without burning yourself out.

Carmen: As community managers, the job that is required of us heavily involves showing up and using all of our emotions. There is a high level of empathy involved and that can be quite draining on a community manager because, at the end of the day, we are all humans.  So you definitely need to have some boundaries in place.

I would recommend complete transparency with your community members and what I mean by that is you need to show them that you’re also a human and you need to manage their expectations. For example, what hours are you on? What hours are off? Give them a timeline to manage their expectations around how long it will take for you to get back to them on any issue that they have.

Try to automate certain tasks that can be automated without removing the human element to it. Have the best FAQ that you don’t have to be permanently available to answer questions because you have an amazing FAQ or a great community library that people can refer to out of your hours.

You can also find others who can help fill up the gap as well - I’ve built ambassadors in the past that have helped me scale up communities and I’ve had people in different timezones who are on during hours when I would not be on.

If you’re managing a global community, it’s not sustainable for you to be on at all hours of the day. So you need to have systems and processes in place to figure out how to fill up those gaps without burning yourself out.

My North Star

Carmen: My North Star when building communities is to truly understand the purpose of building the community and it’s something I refer to throughout the process of building a community- whether that’s strategy, or it’s engagement, growth, or content generation - everything should go back to the purpose of the community because this is really what will set you in the right direction. By purpose, I’m talking about why the community exists in the first place, and what problem you are trying to solve whether that’s on behalf of the business or the community members.

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You can connect with Carmen on X

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*Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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