Join for the Code, Stay for the Community
When did you first realize that community management was an actual job? Many of the guests on Community Signal, including Patrick and this week\u2019s guest,\xa0Shreyas Narayanan Kutty, got their start in community management by volunteering for causes or topics that they were passionate about. After building communities as\xa0a volunteer for the Mozilla Foundation, Shreyas found himself surrounded by community professionals and realized that he wanted to take his work full-time.
Shreyas now manages the developer relations community for\xa0CoinList, and with seven years of experience managing communities, he has observed a lot of positive change in how the community profession is perceived in India.
Patrick and Shreyas discuss:
- How they each came to the realization that community management can be a viable job
- Opportunities for growth and specialization in the community management profession
- The practices and guidelines that lay the foundation for successful developer communities
Community management as a career in India:\xa0\u201c[In India] the job seeker layer understands communities now \u2026 but I think change really comes when the top layer, or the hiring layer, really understands communities. When they say, \u2018We know that this is how our business can benefit [from community]; this is the ROI of communities.\u2019 They\u2019ve taken that decision to invest in it. That\u2019s when you understand that this [career] is successful.\u201d \u2013@dun3buggi3
On searching for community management jobs:\xa0\u201cWhen I was looking for the job in community \u2026 a lot of these companies were really looking for business development or sales or growth hacking. They were just sugar coating it with the title \u2018community manager,\u2019 which was really interesting to me because I know that for them it sounded appealing but they really didn\u2019t want to invest in communities. I\u2019ve actually had that conversation with founders where I\u2019m telling them that, \u2018This is a wrong understanding of community, this is not what community management is. If you really want to invest in communities, you probably should think about it this way and not what you\u2019re doing right now.'\u201d \u2013@dun3buggi3
Getting started in community management:\xa0\u201cWhen we go to events, when people just come up to me and say, \u2018How do I get a role? How do I get started in this industry?,\u2019 I tell them that if you\u2019re really passionate about it, there\u2019s nothing that can stop you. I know it sounds like a clich\xe9, but there\u2019s nothing that can stop you from achieving that. My first go-to tips are try to volunteer for an organization that you really care about. Then eventually that might get converted to a paid position but don\u2019t do it because you\u2019re motivated by that, do it because you genuinely care about the cause.\u201d \u2013@dun3buggi3
About Shreyas Narayanan KuttySetting a standard for how we communicate about our work:\xa0\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about these exact things on the show, community management versus social media management and the confusion there. For me, it\u2019s the difference between tools and strategy, that\u2019s how I try to simplify for people. Social media is a toolset. It\u2019s a toolset that\u2019s used by marketing, by human resources, by customer service. Community is a strategy you apply to a toolset. It\u2019s a different set of goals and beliefs.\u201d \u2013@patrickokeefe
Shreyas Narayanan Kutty\xa0is a community manager primarily based in Bangalore, India. A computer science engineer by education, he succumbed to the lure of building communities and took up community management as a full-time profession. He recently joined the\xa0CoinList\xa0team to work on their developer community. Shreyas is also a volunteer with\xa0the Mozilla Foundation.
Shreyas is passionate about digital inclusion and building an open and accessible web. He runs\xa0Community Managers India, a resource for professionals with questions about the industry.
Related Links- Shreyas Narayanan Kutty\u2019s\xa0website
- Shreyas on\xa0Twitter
- CoinList, where Shreyas works on their developer community
- Shreyas\u2019s contributions to Mozilla
- Community Managers India\xa0on Twitter
- Swarm Conference, Australia\u2019s community management conference
- Vanessa Paech\xa0on\xa0Community Signal
- Telegram, a messaging app
- VK, also known as VKontakte
- Instagram to test hiding public likes count in Canada
If you have any thoughts on this episode that you\u2019d like to share, please leave me a comment,\xa0send me an email\xa0or a\xa0tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported\xa0Community Signal on Patreon.