Best Practices, Community Spotlights, Community Management Talks, Ning News, Social Media, Quick Tips, Tools & Tech
Everyone has bad days at work sometimes. And it's pretty normal now to Tweet or post on Facebook to let off some steam.
As community managers, we often can't use the same outlets to vent our frustrations, Maria Ogneva notes in her recent (excellent) article The Dark Side of Community Management. Our names and faces are publicly connected to our employers, and we have to watch what we tweet. With these popular channels of communication turned off to us, it's important to find other avenues of support. When you need to talk about your day, who or what do you turn to?
A Significant Other
Partners are usually the first stop when it comes to venting about your day. If your partner isn't in the social media field, though, they might find it hard to sympathise when you complain about that one person who did that one thing that ruined your day.
Humor/Satire Blogs
A little dose of humor can go a long way, and sometimes, all that's left to do is laugh about something. That's probably what prompted the birth of What Should We Call Social Media. I know I'm not the only one that's thought "I know that feel, bro" to those entries.
Online Communities
When you really just need another community management professional to understand you, online communities are a great place to turn for advice or to bounce ideas off of others.
Offline Communities
If you're fortunate enough to live in an area with a large amount of community managers, there may be meetup groups or other regular meetings of fellow community managers where you can chat, vent, and share ideas face to face.
Do you have a support system outside of one of these areas? Share yours in the comments.
(Image: Bad Day, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from thatgirlcrystal's photostream)
