Making the effort with community management

Community management is all about reaching out to the people who are reaching out to you, our clients, on social media. It’s about keeping the necessary conversations flowing and answering the all important questions. It’s how we make sure that your followers get connected to the right people according to their concerns and that no comment goes unliked. Community management works closely with the social team, both of which are in the know on the client’s company and their social media wishes. 

So, basically, community management is how relationships are built between the brand and its followers. Followers who may be friends, family, customers, suppliers or potential customers. When they send a message or comment on a post, they’re generally looking for a reply or acknowledgment of sorts. They want to engage with other users as well as the brand and, as a community manager, you need to encourage those interactions and steer them in favour of the client.   

How it serves as a marketing and customer service strategy 

Community management is a great addition to your marketing strategy as it can bring a level of personalisation to the individual user. It’s a subtle way of establishing your brand reputation and promoting the type of experience customers can expect from investing in the brand as a whole. Essentially, persuading them to trust you, stick with you and use your products or services. 

It builds the brand’s presence online by engaging with the consumer community in a more informal voice in order to humanise the brand. And while you’re strategically marketing the client’s brand through community management, you’re also serving as a customer service agent. Making sure customer compliments and complaints alike are addressed and if there’s a specific request for information, you provide it or pass them along to someone who can help.  

How your business can benefit from implementing community management 

Community management is the extra communication channel your company needs in order to gain that ever-valuable customer insight. By only investing in having social media profiles with some social media marketing, you’re only doing half the job. You need community management to follow through with the content you put out there. It’s the social side of social media and it’s pretty important. 

Community managers are at the forefront of customer conversation (the conversations that client service miss out on). This means they are able to measure the effectiveness of social content and know what is and isn’t working in terms of how content is being consumed by the online community. Through this insight you can improve your social media strategies and “give the people what they want” and not just what you want them to see and know.   

Taking community management out of your hands  

Many business owners like the idea of internally controlling their social media and community management matters. And while it may work for small businesses or people just starting out, as your business grows, there will be so many other departments that require attention and social media may be thrown on the back burner as something “less important” – shame on you.

Having a third-party company who is completely in the know of all things digital (off the top of my head, Rogerwilco comes to mind), allows you to focus on your product and business while we can take care of your social media community management. With designated check-in times, a clear understanding of the client’s brand and tone, and the best communication skills, you can relax knowing your customer community is growing and being taken care of. 

It seems like community management is somewhat of a small task, but it’s that “extra mile” kind of effort that your customers will appreciate. And aren’t we all in the business of making our customers happy?