Five Ways to do Social Media Community Management Right
So you’ve built a brand.
You put your blood, sweat and tears into the background, purpose and vision for your brand. But your engagement is suffering. You want organic interaction and conversation in the digital space around your brand and real connection with your current and potential audience.
There are a few concepts you need to distinguish and some strategies you need to adopt in order to build an audience base that is connected, loyal and works as ambassadors on behalf of your brand.
1. Make time for your community
To ensure that your community is getting what they need, you’ve got to plan ahead. Your job is to develop and curate an environment that will be enticing to your audience as well as meaningful enough to get them to stay and hopefully become ambassadors for your brand. This requires time committed to assessing the landscape through self-education, analyzing feedback data, and implementing long-term strategy.
2. Be human
“A strong community becomes a place where customers interact not just with your brand, but with each other.” — Jacob, SocialBakers
There is a time and place for an audience to consume content curated with a brand’s voice and formality. But, as brands have increasingly learned, this is not always a sure-fire way of gaining a following, or an engaged one at that.
Jenn Chen for Sprout Social explains that the difference between a social media manager and a community manager is that community managers are focused on one-on-one interactions rather than general curation of content for the brand’s main page. “They spend most of their time directly engaging with new and current members as themselves,” says Chen.
Community managers engage as themselves in a more casual voice, being relatable to the brand’s audience, and fostering a community for conversation, not a platform for consumption.
3. Get in the driver’s seat…
A good community manager knows the power of motivation, because most times they are self-motivated and adapting their strategies as they go. But what is important is that they stick to their goals, take initiative when it comes to bringing people together, and be the ultimate cheerleader.
Paras Pundir dives into how to accomplish being a go-getter and successful motivator with his peers in his article 9 Skills Every Community Manager Should Have.
4. …but don’t be a backseat driver
It’s important to the success of a community manager’s job that their interaction with their brand’s audience feel natural. Sure, as an expert representative of the brand, community managers are encouraged (and expected) to guide conversations and educate curious audience members. But remember that this is about aligning the goals of your community with the needs of your community members.
“A community manager must have the patience and skill to absorb details and offer quality, well-articulated insights, and inputs to their audience.
Because sometimes showing care to people is very human.” — Vijetha Shastry, Executive Director at TiE Bangalore
This approach will not only help you to strengthen your community, but also allow your audience to create user-generated content that will validate your brand and what it represents.
5. Remember: variety is the spice of life
Honestly, not everyone can be taught to be a successful community manager. Community managers’ success rely on being a dynamic, resilient individual with impeccable communication skills, networking abilities, and a drive to connect and strategize, while also being mindful enough to be patient with their brand’s audience, and savvy enough to keep finding new and interesting ways to engage their community members.
Paras Pundir says, “having a positive attitude is so crucial because a community manager has to deal with many different personalities, backgrounds, and differences of opinion on every single day.”
If you are quick on your feet but good at long-term planning, can be a motivator but also allow others to take the reign, and value the power of connection over all else, your online community is in great hands, and are lucky to have you in their corner.
