It is necessary to understand community management as a company, while professionals all evolve today on the Internet!
Social media have become basic channels of interaction for individuals and entities of all kinds.
The companies, whether physical or virtual-only, must be to ensure their presence, in particular, to be closer to their customers.
In order to improve their image and establish better customer relations on social networks, they use a specific area of expertise: community management.
Of course, community animation is not just about companies and brands. It happens that the community manager or community leader works on behalf of a celebrity, a public institution, etc.
This emerging profession, which saw the light of day with the advent of social networks, consists of federating, animating, and moderating a targeted community of Internet users.
Like any other profession, it calls for specific knowledge, particular techniques, and dedicated tools.
Although it is still little known and often misunderstood, community management has become a must for any successful organization.
How important is Community Management for a company?
Community Management performed correctly is one of the factors ensuring the development of a business. It is all the more important when its clientele grows bigger and bigger.
Manage risks, errors, and controversies
Studies have shown that in recent years, customer complaints on social media have increased. On the web, any sensitive comment can turn into an outcry.
It also happens that unwanted comments tarnish the company’s image on its own accounts. See also on other external platforms, such as discussion forums.
As an organization grows, it exposes itself to more risk, error, and controversy. At the same time, unanswered or poorly answered complaints can cause a customer to feel frustrated.
Driven by word of mouth or the sharing of screenshots, poorly managed expressions of dissatisfaction can be dangerous for the business.
Leave positive digital footprints
On the other hand, if the comments left by the CM and the community are pleasantly positive, they will constitute digital footprints that can only be favorable to the brand.
Users will give the business more credibility, and be more likely to consume its products.
Concretely, community management makes it possible to transform dissatisfied people into loyal fans and to convince influential people and potential customers.
It is also a means of obtaining quality feedback on the products and services put on the market.
Naturally, an organization powered by a good community leader is more likely to attract other brands and establish interesting partnership relationships.
What is a good community management strategy?
It should be emphasized that the community associated with a given entity is not homogeneous. It is rather scattered in different places on the internet.
Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Quora, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, the forums, and the comment sections of the articles constitute places of the intervention of the community facilitator.
In this immense jungle, you have to know how to navigate, recognize your targets, and think carefully about your actions.
It is, therefore, necessary to establish a solid community management strategy at the start of an activity and define specific objectives.
Closely monitor brand mentions
The community manager is first and foremost called upon to carefully follow the conversations around the brand. Good community management can not take place without a continuous social listening effort.
It is by monitoring these mentions that the community manager will be able to seize different opportunities.
This could be, for example, converting a customer complaint into additional information for the public, or launching a viral hashtag.
Proactively engage with customers
It is essential for the community leader to keep the conversations active, to encourage them. Its mission is also to proactively engage with customers, prospects, and people of influence.
This implies constant monitoring of the various social channels. It will be about showing great empathy to your clients.
During his interventions, he can, for example, redirect customers to the company’s content or products, or thank them and encourage them to share photos under a hashtag.
Bring value and get feedback
In community management, there is a key principle: the 80/20 rule. This rule involves providing added value 80% of the time, and solicitation of return 20% of the time.
Thus, it is up to the CM to moderate conversations and comments, remove or hide unwanted content, and resolve various complaints.
Sometimes, however, he doesn’t have time to react to everything. It will therefore be necessary to select the comments that deserve to be added value.
While avoiding censorship, he must ensure that the reputation of the entity he works for is protected.
Analyze feedback and adapt your strategy based on the data
Depending on these different activities, it will be possible to obtain information on the characteristics of the community.
One of the objectives of community management is to obtain feedback from users and to be able to analyze them.
The CM can then use them, for example, to determine the channels where they are most active, and which will therefore be preferred.
To better assess the ratings, it is necessary to conduct an analysis of the feelings and interests of community members.
To do this, the community manager has tools like Social Mention (free) or Sprinklr (professional).
If they are not 100% reliable, these algorithms make it possible to collect mentions of the brand on the internet and analyze them.
They provide statistical data such as feelings reports, the scope of conversations, and the names of the most involved users.
In conclusion
The job of the community manager implies in-depth knowledge of the company, its challenges, its history, and its market. And since we are never better served than by ourselves, we are sometimes tempted to take on this role.
In some cases, this can be a good idea, but only at the beginning, as it is usually a full-time job.
When the business grows, it is recommended to entrust the community management to a professional.
However, it will be necessary to verify that the latter meet essential criteria, because he will be the brand’s ambassador online.
Author Bio: Raunak Pandey is a Mechanical Engineer by qualification & Marketer by passion.
He is the founder of Maiden Stride, a leading digital marketing company that provides world-class search engine marketing services and website & application development.