Is a forum administrator a different position than an online community manager?

[moonrambler]

I'm thinking an online community manager may also be a forum administrator but have other expected duties, like posting on Facebook and Twitter. Whereas a forum administrator would concentrate solely on the forum. Is that right?

[Curtis2011]

What context are you asking in? Like being hired by a company as an online community manager?

In that case, then yes they would probably be managing stuff like Facebook/Twitter. Or if the company has a forum, then manage that. Or whatever online presence the company has, such as their business website.

[moonrambler]

Yes, that's what I'm asking. I wasn't sure, though, whether that person would also be the forum administrator in addition to the community manager on the message board. It doesn't really look it in general, as far as I can tell.

[CoolBee]

From what I understand it, a 'community manager' may be responsible for things like creating interesting new threads, engaging people in topics for discussion, basically ensuring a forum stays lively and interesting. They may or may not have administrative powers.
An administrator could be completely inactive in terms of discussions and so forth, but simply moderate bad language, libel, bans etc..

[moonrambler]

That makes sense, CoolBee. There's one forum I'm thinking where the community managers start topics, respond to topics, answer questions, and also do general moderating like we do here. But they don't have administrative capabilities.

[splok]

It will depend hugely on the company I would imagine, but if the same company has both positions, I would guess that the community manager does the "interacting" with the community and bringing the useful bits of feedback back to the team. I would then guess that the forum administrator would work more on the technical side, ensuring that the forum is running properly, adding new features, etc.