Photo source: Denise Krebs on flickr.

For most of my life, I've been surrounded by educators. I grew up with parents who were educators. After my football days were over, I taught Spanish at a local high school. I helped coach my old high school football team. My college roommate is a teacher. See what I mean?

These experiences taught me a lot about education, leadership and what it takes to be in front of a classroom. From these experiences, alongside my own time spent managing an online community, I believe teachers would make great community managers. After all, a classroom is a community!

1) Teachers are Constant Learners

Teachers must master a particular subject. Whether it’s English, math, science or a foreign language, teachers are constantly researching and learning in order to be the expert in the room. In order to teach, you have to be a good learner and constantly stay current. There is a saying “ If you want to learn something, teach it, ” which illustrates the fact that in order to teach, one must first learn.

Community managers must also be constant learners. Consider all the changes community managers face:

1. The ways we can engage with community members
2. The strategies we implement
3. Our community members’ needs
4. The technology that we have to help manage and engage with our community

In order to be an effective community manager, one must be a constant learner . Since teachers are accustomed to constant learning, they can easily learn about community management, your organization’s goals and strategy, and how to execute your strategy online.

2) Teachers are Great Time Managers

Photo source: Rodrigo Fernandez on flickr.

Most community managers need to be time-aware in order to handle tasks that need to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. Whether it’s executing your organization’s strategy or responding to your community’s questions, a community manager needs to be proficient at time management.

This is where teachers shine. I didn’t really have an appreciation for this until I spent a year teaching. We had to do roll call, say the pledge of allegiance, teach the lesson of the day, allow time for questions, handle disruptive students, review homework and (of course) handle any fire alarms that got pulled during the day. Teachers face time management challenges on a daily, weekly, and semester-long basis. Balancing all that is not easy.

3) Teachers Are Great Leaders

I loved to see students come to school motivated to learn, but it didn't always happen that way. Even in some of the best schools, some students simply aren’t motivated to learn. This is one of the many areas where leadership comes into play. Teachers have to lead the class in several ways. 

Teachers set the tone for interactions in the classroom, they set the precedence on how discipline will be enforced, and they figure out what motivates each student to perform. This ability to motivate is a great talent and is one that can be made better over time.

In a similar manner, community managers are the leaders of online communities . Some members cause problems or bring a certain level of negativity to your community, while other members are your brand’s superfans. Being able to balance the various personalities in your community is a form of leadership. As the community manager, you lead your community, striving to make it better and increase engagement.

4) Teachers Handle the small details

A teacher has to manage every detail about the class. When I started teaching, I quickly learned that there were many details I didn’t know existed. From taking attendance, to administering tests, to following the curriculum coordinator’s semester-long strategic plans, to reviewing homework, there are numerous details that a teacher has to manage on a daily basis. It can be overwhelming to manage all these details.

A community manager has to manage details at various levels . Community managers must approve site membership requests, moderate content submissions and set permissions across the site, all while ensuring the community is achieving the organization's larger objectives.

5) Teachers are Great at Communicating

Teachers must be great communicators. Since students represent various learning styles, a teacher must be able to explain concepts and principles to these multiple intelligences in a way that each learner/learning style can understand the concepts. Some learners may be more visual while others are more tactile. The tactile learners may need to have hands-on learning, while others may be learn better by simply listening. 

Conveying concepts to all these learning styles within a short time frame is not always an easy task. As a result, a teacher is very good about connecting with all personality types and learning styles in order to effectively convey a message to them.

Community managers also must master a similar skillset to ensure that messages are effectively communicated and understood. The interactions may not be face-to-face like a teacher’s interactions are, but the community manager can still take measures to ensure clear and understandable communications to members. 

Online communities represent various learning styles just like students in a classroom. Consider that your community picks up on messaging in various ways, so try to evenly distribute your messaging in multiple formats: blog posts, banners, videos and audio.

Photo source: Connections Academy blog

6) Teachers Creatively Operate Within the School's Guidelines

Teachers must know how to operate within specific guidelines and curriculum. Whether the guidelines are set by the district or the school, a teacher is accustomed to creatively operating within those guidelines. When I taught Spanish, I was able to incorporate music, videos, games, partner projects, skits and art to address students' varied learning styles, all while operating within the guidelines of my department. I found that students could learn anything, so long as I made the learning process fun. Learning ended up being a side product of having fun and we did it within the curriculum!

Community managers have guidelines to follow as well. These parameters may differ from organization to organization, but there will be playing rules. The community manager needs to creatively engage with the community within those parameters. If you have messages to communicate or tactics to implement, be sure to get that done within the guidelines of your organization, but make it as creative and fun as possible to increase engagement in your community.

7) Teachers Know When to Listen

Teachers spend the majority of their time instructing, but over time the good teachers become seasoned at knowing when they should listen to their students. This ability to understand when to listen is critical in leading any type of community.

Likewise, one of the traits of a good community manager is knowing when to listen. Often times your community members can be directly (or indirectly) telling you important information, making feature requests, or creating new ideas right in front of you. If you are not listening to your community, you can miss all this vital info. Channel your inner-teacher and look for the moments when it may be best to listen instead of instructing .

8) Teachers understand how to Measure Success

Photo source: Josep Rosell on flickr.

Teachers do a lot of grading and complete a lot of report cards. Measuring success is second nature to them. Students are taught concepts, then work through projects putting those concepts into action. Shortly thereafter, they are tested to denote their comprehension of concepts. In short, the student’s level of understanding is a form of measurement (of the teacher's teaching). Teachers understand that measuring success is vital to the development of their students.

Community managers understand that organizations want to validate ROI (or impact) for having an online community. This causes community managers to implement some form of measurement for their community so they can report on success and growth . In nearly every type of organization, there are metrics being tracked. Teachers understand the importance of measuring results just as community managers do.

9) Teachers Understand Lesson Plans

Teachers have to create and follow lesson plans over the course of a semester. These lesson plans typically have to be submitted for review to the department head or curriculum coordinator, but they represent the teacher’s game plan for the semester. Yes, there are snow days, students who miss days, pep rallies, and other things that cause teachers to have to update or adjust their lesson plans. Teachers must not only be great at time management (and adjusting on the fly), they must also execute strategy on schedule.

Community management operates within similar parameters. There is a strategy to how you manage your community and goals that you want to achieve. Every now and then, things come up. Your site may go down or have an influx of traffic and you must respond accordingly. The need to execute your strategy remains even when your to-do list stacks up on top of you and even when your site may be down!

10) Teachers know how to Engage

Teachers know they are successful when they have their students deeply engaged with the subject matter they are teaching. Engagement is a win in the classroom, just as it is in online communities. As a teacher, there are all kinds of possible distractions that can prevent engagement from occurring. 

Community Managers can also have distractions that can lead to lower engagement. The distractions may be internal to your organization, or they may be a new technology you deployed. It could be that members are spending too much time in one area of your community that requires a lot of your attention. Regardless of the number of distractions in a classroom or an online community, seeking out engagement is still a vital factor.

Conclusion

Teachers are a "jack of all trades," just like community managers. I hope that you have found this helpful. If you happen to be a teacher looking for a new career, give community management a shot. It worked well for me.

Use the Comments area below to share your thoughts on the similarities you see between community managers and teachers. Thanks!

Related Reading

Read my related blog series on why your online community needs a good quarter back. It's a three part series. Get started with Part 1.