There is no unanimity regarding the day that World Community Manager Day is celebrated. For a long time the holiday was celebrated on January 23, one day before the patron saint of journalists and two days before the patron saint of publicists.
However, in recent years the sector seems to have taken the fourth Monday in January as a date to commemorate the work of Social Media professionals. There are those who consider that it is “the last Monday in January”, what happens is that this year, January 2024 has five Mondays (having started on January 1 on this day), so there is once again some confusion.
But taking into account that World Community Manager Day should be the fourth Monday in January, we can conclude that today is the day on which this holiday should be celebrated or, at least, the day for which there is the greatest consensus.
This date of the fourth Monday in January was suggested by expert Jeremiah Owyang, who 12 years ago published on his blog the need to establish a day of celebration for professionals who worked in the social media sector.
Origin of the Community Manager profession
It is true that a decade ago the profession was still undeveloped. In fact, people began to talk about Community Manager when social networks launched company profiles – the first to do so was Facebook, in 2008 – and that is when companies begin to feel the need to have professionals who are in charge of managing the relationship with the users of these platforms.
It is true that for a long time, as it was a new profession, there was some misinformation and those who worked in the health sector were accused of “sell a lot of smoke”. However, over time the profession has matured and properly trained professionals accompany companies in their presence on social networks and have become a strategic figure within the organizational chart of any company.
Professionals also specialize to meet the demands of companies and new roles emerge, such as Social Media Managers (those responsible for coordinating the work of Community Managers), Social Media Strategists (who design the strategy that will be implemented the CMs), the Social Media analysts, whose important work consists of monitoring the actions carried out on these platforms to determine if the results set in the Social Media Plan are being obtained… and many more, depending on the size and particularities of each company.
The figure of the Community Manager – referring to it as a generic term that encompasses all Social Media professionals – is in constant development and evolution. You cannot stand by and watch new developments occur every day. a sector as changing as it is exciting.
Obviously there is still a long way to go and there are still false promises, offers at ridiculous prices that do not offer a quality service and companies that continue to leave the management of their social networks to a person with no experience. But we have also come a long way and more and more companies understand the need to be present on social networks in a managed and professional way, not just in any way.
Lets keep working. It is the only way to continue laying the foundations of the profession. Happy World Community Manager Day.
