Community Manager Appreciation Day

Yul Contenu community managers at PodCamp Montreal 2010

Community Manager Appreciation Day takes place every 4th Monday of January as a way to recognize and celebrate the efforts of community managers around the world using social media and other tools to improve customer experiences.

History

Jeremiah Owyang initiated this international event in 2010.^[1] People are encouraged to send sincere Thank You notes to their online community managers. People using Twitter include the #CMAD and #CMGR hashtag in their tweets about this event. Many online community managers and vendors in the social media marketplace post blogs in appreciation of their community managers. Cities with large concentrations of Social Media focused businesses, such as Boston, Austin, and San Francisco hold in-person meetup events to celebrate and honor those who represent and support their online communities.

In 2011, Africa's first Community Manager Appreciation Day took place in Nairobi, it was facilitated by iHub Nairobi, hosted by Mark Kaigwa and Soud Hyder. The Nairobi meetup was attended by leading community managers, digital media as well social media experts and practitioners. Present were representatives from Kenya ICT Board, Pamoja Media, Questek, Safaricom, Sandstorm, Social Light Media, Squad Digital, Skunkworks Nairobi. At the suggestion of Victor Ngeny the group agreed to have regular meetups to discuss matters pertaining to the digital media, internet and content industry in Kenya.

CA Technologies participated in the 2011 Community Manager Appreciation Day by issuing a press release and a video to publicly celebrate the contributions of its community managers.

Europe's first Community Manager Appreciation Day was organized in 2012 in Tampere, Finland. The gathering of Finnish community managers was facilitated by SOITA, a project led by the Tampere University of Technology focusing on social media as a tool for customer service innovation. About 10 people participated in the first CMAD event. The following year, the CMAD2013 event saw a huge growth in popularity attracting over 150 social media professionals - and tens of online viewers via live stream.

In 2014, phpList announced the appointment of their new Community Manager to coincide with the event.^[2]

Notes