Online community members with a lot of social influence within a community may be preventing full community participation. While groups welcome so-called "social media rock stars," these influencers can also weaken a group. The job of the community manager is to nurture full participation and ensure that the social media rock stars don't adversely affect community participation.

Active management of an online community on a registered site or social network translates into quantifiable value for the sponsoring organization. This blog post offers value data from two online communities that lost active community managers, and the subsequent effects on both the community and value from the community to the sponsoring organization.