Happy "Community Manager Appreciation Day"!

Today is Community Manager Appreciation Day.

I was one at the BBC on the Points Of View message board for a while, and worked closely with community management teams at both the Corporation and in my current role at The Guardian. Given the sheer volume of community interactions that news companies are involved in on their own sites, and across an increasingly diverse range of social media networks, it is another example of a digital role that needs to become more established within the industry. As Mark Jones from Reuters pointed out at news:rewired just before Christmas, it is a role that requires a different skillset from that of a journalist or reporter, and we simply don't have enough of them.

If you want to find out more about the role, which is so much more than 'being a moderator', then I think your best starting place is Blaise Grimes-Viort. He publishes a weekly round-up of links to a great selection of content that is essential reading on the topic, and is worth following on Twitter too.

And if you are involved in community management, then there is a meet-up event in London tonight to celebrate the role.