Engaging with your community on social media in today’s digital world is essential for your brand. Did you know that 76% of consumers anticipate interaction with companies on social platforms? Community management on social media isn’t just an option anymore but a non-negotiable aspect of doing business.
We’re not talking about replying to follower comments. Community management is about creating an environment where customers feel listened to, appreciated, and part of a bigger story than just themselves.
This guide will show you how to use social media to connect with your brand’s followers. By managing your online community, you’ll boost engagement and drive long-term growth. Here’s what we’ll cover:
- What is community management on social media?
- What are social media community managers?
- Benefits of social media community management for brands
- 6 principles for effective social media community management
- Strategies to expand and strengthen your online communities
- How leading brands are doing community management on social media
- Maximizing ROI from social media community management efforts
Ready? Let’s get started.
What is social media community management?
Community management on social media means engaging with a brand’s online community. It involves building and nurturing that community. It’s about creating a lively space for customers to interact with each other and the brand. Community management aims to build strong relationships. The long-term goal is to boost customer loyalty and enhance your brand’s reputation in the marketplace.
How is this different from social media marketing?
Social media marketing promotes products and services using targeted campaigns to boost sales. On the other hand, community management aims to create a supportive, interactive online space. It values engagement and relationship-building. The key difference is that in successful community management you encourage ongoing dialog between your brand and your customers.
What are social media community managers?
Community managers are also a key part of social media community management. Their roles have changed over the years, and they are now vital to social media agencies. Originally, they were tasked with moderating comments or responding to reviews or inquiries. Today, community managers play a role as strategic allies in businesses.
Among other duties, social media managers:
- Assess engagement data
- Create community-driven content
- Cultivate partnerships to enrich the customer journey
Today’s community managers need a diverse skill set: strong communication abilities and emotional intelligence to act as brand ambassadors. They are the glue that strengthens the bond between a brand and its audience.
4 benefits of social media community management for brands
Effective community management on social media has many benefits. Brands can unlock various advantages by fostering meaningful relationships and encouraging active participation.
Let’s look at four of the most significant benefits.
1. Strengthening brand credibility
Building a strong community helps brands establish trust and credibility. When customers feel they are part of a community, their loyalty deepens. Seventy percent of consumers report feeling more connected to a brand when the CEO is active on social media.
2. Boosting engagement to drive organic growth
Communities thrive on engagement, which can lead to organic growth for brands. Engaged audiences are more likely to share content, driving word-of-mouth marketing. Studies show that 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. When you can provide a great experience, your ROI will skyrocket.
3. Increasing customer loyalty
One study found that nearly 80% of customers say that the experience provided by a company is just as important as the products or services offered.
As you engage positively with customers online, you leave them with a memorable impression. They want to do business with you, cultivating a loyal customer base. This is a big deal because current customers spend 67% more than customers who are first-time buyers.
4. Enhancing brand recall
A recent study shows that 39% of brand perception is influenced by brand recall. Effective community management protects your brand’s reputation on social media because you are now “top of mind.” This translates into word-of-mouth recommendations, which bring in new customers and drive sales.
Read More: Employee Generated Content: Why It’s Important For Brands & Companies
6 principles for effective social media community management
To manage a thriving community, social media managers must build trust. They must also encourage engagement and growth. Here are six principles to help you build and maintain a healthy, active social media community.
1. Cultivate transparency and trust
Transparency is the foundation of a strong community. Members feel more connected and valued when your brand is honest and open. Here’s how to do it:
- Acknowledge mistakes quickly: If your brand makes a mistake, address it openly. Apologize when necessary, and explain how you’ll prevent it from happening again. This openness will build credibility.
- Communicate regularly: Keep your community updated on changes, updates, or events. Don’t wait for them to ask—be proactive and share important information.
- Respond authentically: Avoid generic, automated responses. When you engage with your community, personalize your responses. It shows you care.
2. Establish clear guidelines
Clear behavior boundaries in your community create structure and reduce conflicts.
- Create a community code of conduct: Define the rules for engagement. Include what content, behavior, and language are acceptable. Post these guidelines in an easily accessible place, like your profile bio, a pinned post, or on your link-in-bio page.
- Be consistent in enforcement: If someone breaks the rules, apply the guidelines equally to all, regardless of their status in the community.
- Encourage positive behavior: Use language in your rules and posts that foster engagement. Reward members who contribute positively to keep the community standards high.
3. Stay engaged with members
Community management requires constant interaction to show members that their participation is valued.
- Respond promptly: Reply to questions, comments, and mentions as quickly as possible. Aim for within 24 hours or sooner, especially for customer support inquiries.
- Ask for input: Involve your community by seeking their feedback on new ideas or products. Use polls, questions, or open-ended posts to foster conversation.
- Show appreciation: Regularly thank your community members for their contributions. Spotlight top contributors in posts to boost engagement and morale.
- Optimize external channels: The more engaged you are with followers, the more likely they’ll head to your website, YouTube page, and other external channels. Make sure that content is optimized for mobile users, as most social interactions happen on mobile devices.
4. Create a safe online space
Your community should feel like a welcoming and inclusive place for all members. Here’s how to ensure that happens:
- Monitor for harmful behavior: Use tools and manual moderation to quickly find and fix harassment, hate speech, or trolling. Don’t hesitate to remove toxic members to maintain a safe environment.
- Encourage respectful dialogue: Promote diversity of thought, but remind members to debate constructively and with respect. Set the tone by modeling respectful responses, even during disagreements.
- Provide support resources: If your community discusses sensitive topics, consider sharing links to external resources, like mental health hotlines. This can help members in need.
5. Encourage community participation and co-creation
An engaged community feels like a co-owner of the space. Give them the opportunity to contribute and create alongside your brand.
- Run community-driven campaigns: Ask your members to share content, join challenges, or submit ideas for new initiatives. Feature their contributions to make them feel included.
- Invite content creation: Encourage members to create their own content around your brand. This could include testimonials, product reviews, or tutorials.
- Host interactive events: Schedule live Q&A sessions, contests, or webinars. They should allow for direct audience interaction. This creates a sense of real-time collaboration and shared experience.
6. Track metrics to continuously improve
Community management is an ongoing process. Getting the right data can help you improve your strategy.
- Track engagement metrics: Use tools like social media analytics to monitor likes, comments, shares, and mentions. Identify which types of content perform best and adapt your strategy accordingly.
- Analyze sentiment: Go beyond engagement rates to understand how people feel about your brand and community. Use Keyhole’s social listening tool to track sentiment, and adjust your tone, content, or approach based on feedback.
- Identify trends: Check when your community is most active. Post during peak times to maximize visibility and interaction.
Keyhole will help you unlock the insights you need to grow your community.
3 tips to grow and strengthen your social media community
Expanding and nurturing your online community can significantly enhance engagement and brand loyalty. Here are three essential tips to help you grow and strengthen your social media presence:
1. Be ready to engage and answer hard questions
As a community manager, you need to prepare for tough questions about your brand.
Answer these inquiries with calm professionalism. Acknowledge the questioner’s concerns to show you value their input. Provide honest answers, and if you don’t have an immediate response, let them know you’ll follow up.
By offering solutions and promoting dialogue, you build trust.
You also show your commitment to being genuine. The best part? Followers will know you are a real human behind the screen, not a bot.
If you are a smaller company like Jorge Argota, focus on making it personal with an about page that gives clients or customers the whole story- your journey from the beginning to where you are now. In Jorge’s example- he focuses on serving the Miami area and leans into that when bringing in new clients.
2. Collaborate with influencers and ambassadors
Identify and partner with influencers or brand ambassadors who resonate with your audience. Their authentic engagement can help amplify your message and attract new members.
Consider using various recruitment strategies–similar to those used in digital hiring–to find the right individuals who align with your brand values.
3. Utilize social media tools for efficiency
Leverage tools like Keyhole’s analytics or publishing products to streamline your processes. These tools can take care of the mundane tasks you can’t avoid so you can focus on fostering community connections and responding to members effectively.
How leading brands are doing community management on social media
You can learn a lot about what to do on social media from leading brands. The best brands leverage community management strategies to enhance engagement, build loyalty, and foster authentic connections. Here are four examples to inspire you.
1. Netflix
Netflix has built vibrant online communities around its shows on Twitter and Instagram. They engage with fans at live events, which encourages discussions and shares behind-the-scenes content. Their memes and relatable posts keep the chat light and fun. Their social media team also regularly re-posts content from followers and replies to comments often.
This fosters a sense of belonging among viewers, and it’s a tremendous incentive for followers to interact with Netflix knowing their post may get shared by the company.
2. Glossier
Glossier has built a strong community by prioritizing customer feedback and encouraging user-generated content. The beauty brand actively engages with its audience on Instagram, often featuring customer reviews and photos. Influencers share their authentic experiences using Glossier’s products in action with the hashtag #GlossierPartner.
Read More: Fenty Beauty’s Social Media Strategy: An Inclusive And Appealing Approach
3. Peloton
Peloton excels at community management by creating a supportive environment for its users. They use Facebook Groups and their app to connect members. This facilitates discussions about workouts and fitness tips.
Peloton also has an ongoing “Member Spotlight” series that highlights individual user stories. The series feels very “down to earth.” It’s unlike the dramatic, stylized Peloton ads potential customers typically see.
4. Airbnb
Airbnb uses social media to build its community. It encourages hosts and guests to share their experiences. They invite users to post stories and photos of their stays using the hashtag #AirbnbHostStories.
By engaging with this content and sharing user stories, Airbnb builds a sense of belonging among travelers and hosts. This, in turn, fosters brand loyalty. Airbnb isn’t just a service to find a home for vacation, but a community with whom people can share experiences.
Maximizing ROI from social media community management efforts
If you don’t measure the impact of your community management efforts quantitatively, you’re wasting your time. In other words, you need to find the return on your investment (ROI). Begin by tracking key metrics such as engagement rates, sentiment analysis, and overall customer satisfaction.
Additionally, seek direct feedback from your followers.
Just as employee engagement surveys offer valuable insights into workforce satisfaction, similar tools can help you gauge community satisfaction. A good engagement survey can find areas to improve to help you keep your members satisfied and active.
Wrapping it up
Effective community management on social media is vital. It builds connections and boosts brand loyalty. You make the biggest impact when you track your progress and then refine your strategies to ensure your efforts yield a high return.
Community management is all about engaging your audience, meeting their needs, and gathering feedback. The best practices and examples we covered will help you strengthen your relationships with your followers. They will also unlock new opportunities for growth.
Ready to take your community management to the next level? Our tools can help you optimize your strategies, measure your impact, and build a vibrant online community that drives results. Book a demo today to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is community management for social media?
We like to describe community management as the process of giving your brand a face and personality. Companies do this by engaging with their audience on social media. This can be done by replying to tweets, engaging with posts where people mention your brand, hosting webinars, or hosting a live stream.
2. What are the fundamental principles of community management on social media?
Some of the most essential principles of social media community management would be:
-Creating a welcoming and inclusive environment,
-Being creative with your approaches to how you communicate with your audience,
-Providing customer support and care through your social media channels even in unconventional ways (especially in unconventional ways),
and, most of all, encouraging member involvement.
You cannot be the only person talking—everyone wants to be heard. Making sure your audience feels heard and on equal footing with your brand will create the most important ingredient for future success: trust.
3. What is the role of community management in social media?
The role of community management on social media is to move social media from simply being a place to advertise your services to being the crux of your strategy to build relationships with your audience and create a sense of loyalty to your brand.
4. What is the primary goal of community management on social media?
The primary goal of social media community management is to create an online community that your brand can call its own and to ensure the community thrives.
