Esports
Community Manager

What is an Esports community manager?

This is someone who can look after a community of a particular game, esport, tournament provider or other area of gaming.

They might have to engage with and respond to the community on social media, for example on Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat, plus platforms including YouTube, Reddit, blogs, websites, Twitch and forums to name a few.

Community managers will usually work closely with the PR and marketing teams, or be a part of this team themselves, as what they do can influence how the audience feel about a product or brand. Because of this, they may be required to write press releases, conduct interviews and post regularly on social media.

They will also need to identify key requests and reactions from the community and feed them back to the team.

Because the role is so people-focused, having experience or knowledge in human resources could also be a bonus. As it’s such a customer-focused sector, you may be required to work closely with any product management and sales/partnerships teams too.

What’s the job like?

Another community manager explains: “As a community manager you have your hand on the pulse of the community and have a really good idea of what the community want/need from the ground up. This makes you an important asset in a company that wants to find out what strategies and products to create.

“Being able to create your own ideas and concepts with this knowledge is also incredibly useful in directing what projects can be created in the future that directly benefit the community.

“Because of this knowledge, I think community managers often get tasked with operational projects as well, such as event management, so having organisational and management skills are incredibly useful!

“There’s a lot of different paths you can take from community management, depending on whether you worked more closely with different departments in a company, and often community managers move to influencer management, project management, marketing/social media or partnerships/business development in the future.”

Hours and salary

Community and social media management is usually a 9 to 5 role, though bigger brands may will expect a team to hold the fort between them, and answer questions at most times of the day. Community managers may also be expected to schedule posts to go live in the evenings and weekends, to maintain a consistent level of engagement.

Salaries vary, but expect junior positions to pay nearer the £20,000 mark and more senior managers to earn between £35,000 and £40,000 or above. Several job websites list the average community management salary at around £30,000.