Community strategy is more than posting.
My work sits at the intersection of people, content and systems.
I’ve built social-media programs, managed large online communities, developed audience strategies, handled high-pressure communications and created operational systems that help community teams work more effectively.
Below are four examples of how I approach that work.
🦅 COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT AT SCALE
Friends of Big Bear Valley
500K+ member Facebook community
Managing an enormous, passionate community requires more than moderation. It requires judgment, consistency, empathy and systems that help an entire moderator team respond effectively.
My work:
Community moderation • Member support • Moderator coordination • Engagement • Sensitive-event response • Video storytelling • Fundraising content • Community operations
[CASE STUDY →]
Managing Community at Massive Scale
Friends of Big Bear Valley
The Community
Friends of Big Bear Valley operates a global conservation community surrounding the famous Big Bear bald eagles, Jackie and Shadow. The nonprofit reports more than 2.6 million social-media followers, while its Facebook presence alone has reached approximately 1.2 million followers.
My Role
As part of the social/community operation, I help manage the enormous volume of conversation generated by this passionate audience, including moderation of the official private Facebook community.
My work includes:
- Reviewing and approving member content
- Enforcing community standards
- Answering member questions
- Managing spam, misinformation and conflict
- Coordinating with other moderators
- Creating engagement content and community resources
- Producing graphics, storytelling and fundraising video
- Helping establish moderator procedures, schedules and guidance
- Supporting communication during highly emotional or sensitive events
The Scale
FOBBV has documented just how quickly its Facebook group grew: 163,000 → 373,000 members in a single nesting season, with moderators handling up to 300 submitted posts per day.
The community has since grown to over 500,000 members, making this fundamentally different from managing a typical brand page. It requires systems, judgment, consistency and an understanding of how people behave inside enormous online communities.
High-Stakes Community Management
This community experiences extraordinary emotional peaks. Major events surrounding Jackie and Shadow can generate thousands of reactions and comments. The Los Angeles Times reported that posts announcing the loss of eggs and the death of FOBBV Executive Director Sandy Steers generated more than 12,000 comments.
That means moderation isn’t simply deleting spam. It involves maintaining a compassionate community while dealing with grief, misinformation, conflict, repeated questions, rapidly changing information and enormous public attention.
What This Work Demonstrates
Large-Scale Community Management • Facebook Group Administration • Crisis & Sensitive-Event Moderation • Volunteer Coordination • Community Guidelines • Escalation Systems • Engagement Strategy • Nonprofit Communications • Video & Visual Storytelling
📰 SOCIAL MEDIA + AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT
The Grand Island Independent
I helped build the newspaper’s social-media operation from its early days, eventually moving into audience development and helping integrate social, mobile, video and digital engagement throughout the newsroom.
My work:
Social strategy • Audience growth • Community engagement • Breaking news • Training • Multimedia • Digital journalism
Recognition:
🏆 1st Place, Best Use of Social Media
🏆 2nd Place, Best Use of Social Media
🏆 2nd Place, Online Coverage of Breaking News
[CASE STUDY →]
Building a Social Media & Community Operation From Scratch
The Grand Island Independent
The Challenge
When social media was still new to local journalism, The Grand Island Independent needed to figure out how Facebook, Twitter, live conversations and other emerging digital tools could actually serve its readers rather than simply become another place to repost headlines.
What I Did
As Web Editor/Social Media Coordinator, I helped build that operation from the ground up. My work included developing the newspaper’s social voice, managing online communities, integrating social media into newsroom workflows, experimenting with emerging platforms, training journalists and finding new ways for readers to interact directly with the newsroom.
In 2009, journalist and professor Mark Coddington described me as having “spearheaded” creative uses of web and social media at the Independent, including daily reader chats and developing a more personal newspaper voice on Facebook and Twitter.
Community-First Innovation
One early experiment used live chat during a website redesign so readers could talk directly with newsroom staff.
It worked so well that the conversation was extended for two additional days. Readers reported problems in real time, allowing us to identify and fix issues quickly. Journalism.co.uk subsequently interviewed me about the project.
Growing Into Audience Strategy
That work eventually expanded far beyond posting to social media.
I was promoted to Audience Development Editor, with responsibility for helping advance social media, mobile reporting, video development and other digital-journalism initiatives.
I was later interviewed about audience development alongside growth leaders from Quartz and The Denver Post. My role included finding opportunities to increase website and mobile-app traffic, helping reporters use social media effectively, and exploring ways to reach underserved rural communities.
Results & Recognition
🏆 1st Place — Best Use of Social Media
Nebraska Press Association, June Tornado Coverage, credited directly to me.
🏆 2nd Place — Best Use of Social Media
Nebraska Press Association, “Spot Todd,” with Todd Birchard and Zach Mayhew.
🏆 2nd Place — Online Coverage of Breaking News
Nebraska Press Association, Winfrey Plumbing Explosion, credited directly to me.
What This Work Demonstrates
Community Management • Social Media Strategy • Audience Development • Breaking News • Crisis Communications • Digital Strategy • Moderator Leadership • Social Listening • Multimedia • Community Engagement
💬 COMMUNITY OPERATIONS
Community Command OS
After years of handling the same recurring challenges that community teams face, I turned that experience into a repeatable operating system.
The result is a toolkit covering moderation, onboarding, rules, escalation, crises, trolls, spam, engagement, scheduling, community health and AI workflows.
My work:
Community operations • SOP development • Process design • Moderator training • Crisis planning • AI workflows • Digital product development
[CASE STUDY →]
Community Command OS
Turning Community Management Experience Into a Repeatable System
The Challenge
Community managers are often expected to handle everything from spam and conflict to moderator training, crises and engagement, without a real operating system.
What I Built
I created Community Command OS™, a practical toolkit that turns community-management knowledge into documented, repeatable workflows.
The system includes:
- Moderator handbook and onboarding
- Community rules templates
- Crisis/escalation decision trees
- Troll and spam response scripts
- Sensitive-event templates
- 100 engagement prompts
- Moderator scheduling
- Community-health tracking
- AI prompts for community managers
- Admin-intervention guidelines
- Specialized nonprofit, creator and Facebook Group editions
- Agency/client implementation tools
Why It Matters
This project demonstrates something beyond day-to-day moderation: community operations design.
I identified recurring problems community teams face, developed standardized processes for handling them, created training and decision-support resources, and packaged those systems so they can be implemented by other community professionals.
That complements a career that already includes large-community moderation, management of 40+ social accounts, audience development and pioneering social-media integration in a newsroom.
What This Project Demonstrates
Community Operations • Moderation Strategy • SOP Development • Process Design • Crisis Planning • Team Training • Engagement Strategy • AI Workflows • Digital Product Development
🚨 CRISIS + RAPID RESPONSE
When the Stakes Are High
My journalism background taught me how to communicate when information is changing quickly, emotions are high and thousands of people may be watching.
That experience now informs how I approach sensitive situations in online communities:
Monitor → Verify → Communicate → Moderate → Escalate → Document → Update
My work:
Crisis communication • Breaking news • Social listening • Information verification • Escalation • Sensitive-event moderation
[VIEW CASE STUDY →]
Breaking News, Crisis Communications & High-Pressure Community Management
The Grand Island Independent + Online Community Work
Community management gets harder when information is changing quickly, emotions are high and thousands of people are watching.
My journalism background gave me extensive experience working in exactly those situations.
What I Did
At The Grand Island Independent, I helped coordinate digital and social coverage during breaking news, severe weather and other major community events. That meant balancing speed with accuracy, monitoring incoming information, publishing updates, responding to the community and adapting coverage as events developed.
Award-Winning Results
🏆 1st Place — Best Use of Social Media
Nebraska Press Association for June Tornado Coverage. The award specifically credits Stephanie Romanski and The Grand Island Independent.
🏆 2nd Place — Online Coverage of Breaking News
Nebraska Press Association for coverage of the Winfrey Plumbing Explosion, again specifically credited to Stephanie Romanski.
How That Translates to Community Management
The tools have changed, but the core skills haven’t:
Monitor → Verify → Communicate → Moderate → Escalate → Document → Update
Today, those same skills apply when managing large online communities during sensitive events, misinformation spikes, conflict or sudden surges in attention.
What This Work Demonstrates
Crisis Communications • Breaking News • Social Listening • Rapid Response • Information Verification • Community Moderation • Escalation Judgment • Sensitive-Event Communications
💬 Early Social Media & Community Innovation
Journalist and professor Mark Coddington documented my work spearheading social media experimentation at The Grand Island Independent, including reader chats and developing the newspaper’s voice on Facebook and Twitter.
🎙 Podcasting & Multimedia
Co-created/co-hosted Saturday Stories, a companion podcast to columnist George Ayoub’s work. Apple Podcasts currently indexes 14 episodes.
🎤 Industry Recognition
Interviewed about digital audio and podcasting strategy as Web Editor/Social Media Coordinator.
📱 Community Moderation
My professional background includes long-term administration of forums, article comments and 40+ social accounts, alongside web, graphics, video, audio and community-management work.
WHAT I BRING TO YOUR ORGANIZATION
I help organizations turn social media and online communities into places where people feel informed, welcomed and genuinely connected.
Community Management
Large-community moderation • Moderator workflows • Community guidelines • Escalation systems • Sensitive-event response • Member engagement • Spam/misinformation management
Social & Content Strategy
Facebook • Instagram • X • TikTok • Content calendars • Organic strategy • Copywriting • Audience growth • Campaign planning • Analytics
Digital Storytelling
Video production/editing • Podcasting • Audio editing • Graphics • Livestreaming • Breaking-news coverage • Fundraising storytelling
Community Operations
Moderator handbooks • Training • Scheduling • SOPs • Engagement programs • Community health tracking • AI-assisted workflows
Tools
Canva • CapCut • Adobe Creative Suite • Premiere • Audition • Photoshop • Avid • WordPress • Google Workspace • Microsoft Office • Mailchimp • Buffer • Hootsuite • HTML/CSS
LET’S WORK TOGETHER
Need someone who can do more than schedule posts?
I bring experience building social programs from scratch, managing large and highly engaged communities, creating content across formats, developing community systems and making good decisions when online situations get complicated.
I’m especially interested in remote opportunities in:
Community Management • Senior Community Management • Social Media Strategy • Community Operations • Audience Development • Digital Content