Community Management is one of the most essential tasks in a digital marketing campaign. This does not just include creating and posting content, but also engaging and interacting with the audience and inquiries. It takes a lot of work to take care of and develop a social media community around your brand or company.
Effective community management will drive more customer engagement to your content. It will also give your audience a better customer experience because you were able to help them with their questions and gave them accurate information. More traffic to your website or platforms also means more impressions and potential customers. This will also put your website into a better rank or position because people are talking about your brand, company, or service.
Community management is about building relationships and connections through the social media channels that a manager handle. Having a community manager helps humanize your brand and accounts. It will make the audience feel valued because they are interacting with a person and not just a bot. A manager can also make the content relevant by sharing photos, videos, and evergreen content that are up to date and on trend.
Social media managers help deal with inquiries, comments, reviews, and other user-generated content. The efforts of an effective social media manager are highly valued because those prospects who are actively engaged can easily be converted into paying prospects.
They also act as a catalyst for the purchasing journey of the prospect. They help bridge the gap of having too many inquiries to be satisfied with answers and make the decision to buy or purchase.
Here are some best practices for better community management:
- Planning
Consistently launching content is the key to a successful community management strategy. It will be best to create a calendar for the content that you wish to publish. This will eliminate the chances for duplicity and recall to the audience. Scheduling your content will also help you manage which content will be relevant to a given day, month, or special occasion. Nothing should be last minute, and your content should be relevant.
It will be best to also use tools that can minimize the flaws in your posts. Invest in tools and people who can double-check your work before ever posting it live for the world to see. Lastly, planning content before the deadline to make sure that your client will be able to approve it and leave time to revise it if necessary.
- Brand personality/Consistency
Like mentioned earlier, it helps to schedule your content. This will ensure that your brand or personality is consistent and seamless. Your audience should instantly know that it is you. It will be best to have a consistent color, theme, and messaging. This will avoid confusion and will give you a guided direction of where the business is going.
Being consistent will also make your audience feel that they are constantly engaging with the same personality knowing what they will be expecting. Take time to develop and nurture your brand personality because this will help the audience engage with your content.
- Data collection
As a community manager, you will encounter and engage with people a lot. This is a great time for you to collect data from your prospects. As they ask you questions you should be able to see patterns and the immediate needs that they have. This type of information will innovate your brand and grow your business. Make sure to collect actionable and accurate data that can be shared with other departments.
Change is good when it comes to improving or shaping your business or company according to what the audience is saying or wants. When collecting data, make sure to use the proper tools and label their concerns accordingly. Through this, it will be easier for you to segment the collected data and know which departments specific information should go to.
Listening and valuing what your customers are saying and not saying will help make or break your business. Get that data and make use of it.
- Using metrics and tracking
Success can be measured. Technology made it possible to measure and track the success of our campaign. It can be tricky and there sure is a learning curve. It can sometimes be challenging to track the success of your posts and campaigns, but dedication to understanding the analytics will pay off.
It will be best to determine benchmarks and goals for each campaign to directly say that you’ve reached your desired outcome. Tracking this content and posts will help you understand how well it is performing and if you need to make any adjustments or changes for your next campaign.
Metrics and tracking tools are usually already available on each social media platform. You just need to sit down and study to fully understand what the numbers mean for you and your business.
- Generate unique content
This goes without saying. Make content that will be easily remembered. Taglines, headers, and campaign slogans can help your campaign to be successful. Wordplay and humor go hand in hand.
Having a strong storyline and taglines can go a long way because people will remember them, and this is good for raising awareness about your brand. As much as possible create original content because this will draw more people to your business.
You can produce reviews, share research, make videos, or any content that is relevant to your business. There’s always something new to be showcased and you should be flexible enough to seize and take advantage of it to make the greatest impact.
- Interact and converse
Engage with your audience. Social media is all about interacting with people. Yes, you need a lot of time generating the content, but at the same time, you will get tons of ideas of what to post next by interacting with the audience.
User-generated content or UGC is an authentic source of inspiration for your next post. You will be able to ask your audience about their perspectives and share their own experiences. They are also allowed to engage with others within the community.
Ask your audience for content and you will be surprised by the things that they will come up with.
- Invest in communication
You will need to face your audience and it will be uncomfortable at times. It will be best to invest in your communication skills. You will be representing your brand and business every time you publish a post and there is some pressure added with that responsibility. Invest in tools that will help you check your posts.
Also, study ways on how to negotiate and communicate with people. This will help you when interacting with them or when a negative review comes up. These types of problems will not happen all the time but it will be best to prepare.
Community management may seem daunting for a startup or those who just discovered digital communications. It’s a good thing that there are Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and trusted marketing agencies in Florida who’ve been in the industry for over two decades and have the experience to handle digital communication strategies. It will be an excellent investment to hire and consult SMEs to make sure that you are on the right path and choose the right kind of customer profile, strategy, and platforms to execute your campaign.
Let us help you grow with the latest digital communication trends to help you reach your goals!