The process of community management is through which a brand agency or business creates a dialogue with its community to encourage shared values to values, interests, and objectives. In this regard, it is possible to include employees, customers as well as stakeholders, fans, partners, and prospective customers.
Based on the report 2024 Community Industry Trends Report, 88% of community-based professionals stated that having a well-branded community was crucial to achieving their long-term objectives for their company. A majority (85 percent) claimed that community-based initiatives have brought tangible results for their companies. In essence, communities have become essential to organizations that are committed to standing on their own in their fields.
Effective community-based marketing initiatives can change the perception of brands and businesses and help to make them more human to make them appealing to people. They can also assist businesses to gain greater insight into their customers and boost the duration of the brand’s appeal. This is the case whether we’re talking about a smaller company or a large company.
Community Management: The fundamentals
Community management is central to building authentic and meaningful relationships between organizations and their relationships that go beyond short-term objectives like driving sales or increasing conversions.
While it incorporates aspects of communication, marketing, and branding, however, it is far greater than its components. It’s about developing an identity that lasts throughout time and contributes to the brand’s reputation and image of a company or organization.
The traditional marketing and advertising model that relies on one-way communication is fading away and the interaction offered through social networks is showing to be more beneficial. Communities are quickly brainstorming ideas to facilitate interaction between companies and the public.
Let’s look at this from a different perspective by understanding the actual activities of community managers. Here are a few of their methods:
- Plan. The first step in planning is defining the goals that are important to you, such as developing brand engagement, growing the number of followers that social networks have, or expanding the reach of your posts. The planning process also includes establishing the daily, weekly or monthly schedule of planned social media activities and posts. In the end, a great community manager will create multiple versions of every message to accommodate all possible scenarios.
- Engage. It’s the community manager’s job to interact with the community in innovative and natural ways. Commenting on the posts of other users and responding to their inquiries or requests for help, as well as thanking them for their compliments are all within their realm. It is important that community managers write unique content every time, and not duplicate or automate replies. Community building is based on authentic human interaction.
- Learn to Empathize. Community managers need to practice being sensitive and understanding, even if members of the community share an opinion they don’t have a strong opinion about. If community managers can empathize with ideas and opinions, ideas, suggestions, and even complaints, they’re communicating the ability of their company to create relationships with people.
- Curate. Community managers are accountable for keeping their brands’ social media pages free of clutter. Eliminating spam comments, removing the brand from irrelevant content, and flagging abusive content are just a few of the tasks they’ll have to handle.
- Gather and analyze feedback. Social media feedback can come in a variety of forms. tweets, Instagram posts, stories Facebook comments, and LinkedIn posts all become places that require monitoring for businesses to gather feedback from customers. The information collected is then reviewed and community managers develop strategies for responding efficiently. Feedback analysis can aid companies rethink their strategies, alter products and services, or even design new products according to the needs of consumers.
- Effective solution-oriented. This type of thinking can help brands resolve problems swiftly. When a client has a problem through a social media site the brand can initiate an action.
- Awareness of your brand. It’s much easier to introduce new products or create brand awareness when you’re speaking to a group of customers who are already interested in.
- Relations with customers. Community management allows companies to connect directly with their customers and provide customers with a customized experience. Personalization can be a way to increase customer satisfaction.
- Goals of the organization. The benefits of community management can be measured in terms of how much they can contribute to the organization’s objectives. For instance, a company’s main goal may be greater revenue and sales, whereas the charity might require more donations. A good community manager will leverage the community to achieve the business’s objectives while remaining true to the company’s values and purpose.
Related: How Artificial Intelligence business management?
Community management types
It is the SPACEI framework created through David Spinks on CMX Hub and CMX Hub, is a framework that is widely referenced and explains the different kinds of management for communities. Each one has its own function and target audience and is determined by a company’s particular requirements.
Support
The first letter of the acronym, S means support. It is possible to create customer support communities in which customers can post questions and work together to solve issues with one another. They can also share their best practices or discuss ways to utilize a specific product or service more effectively. Most of the time it’s enough for the community managers to ensure that these discussions are productive, and intervene only in cases where direct intervention is called for.
Alternatively, businesses can utilize feedback forms, FAQs, or even their website to provide channels for customer support.
Its Fitbit Community is a great instance of a forum where members can meet to discuss and respond to questions about Fitbit products. This community within the app is a fantastic spot for members to search for fitness-related information, news, inspiring stories, and even new friends. The company states that Fitbit users who have friends on the platform take on average 700 more steps than those who do not have them.
P Ideation of product, innovation, and feedback
You can create an area where users can gather and engage in discussions about the product’s improvements. You can then make use of the information you gather from these conversations to enhance your products. You’ll be able to use ideas and the information you gather from customers to design unique features.
LEGO Ideas gives us an amazing illustration of how to include consumers in the design process. LEGO Ideas users upload new models or projects, as well as up-vote the latest ones and have conversations regarding items via LEGO Ideas. LEGO Ideas website.
Support for customers can be sought through feedback questionnaires, online surveys, in-person meetings as well as user testing. Involve customers at the beginning of the process by taking part in these types of occasions for feedback.
An Advocacy and acquisition
This type of management involves an array of brand ambassadors and advocates who use the internet to help promote your products. They help increase awareness of your brand and assist in converting enthusiasm into sales.
Marketing has a lot of overlap with community management since ever more companies recognize the importance of influencers and ambassadors when it comes to advertising. Online communities help to spread awareness about your business through social media and word of mouth.
An excellent example of advocacy and acquisition could be the Apple “Shot on iPhone” campaign which collected high-quality user-generated photographs. Over a million people participated and Apple eventually chose 77 of them to display on large billboards across the globe.
The campaign created an even greater Apple community, allowing consumers to feel a part of Apple’s vision and showcasing the superiority of the cameras that are on Apple products.
Programming and Content
This kind of community produces and manages the content that is created on an online platform. In general, a business built on user-generated content or crowdsourcing employs this model.
For instance, a majority of Airbnb’s content is produced by its users who upload photos and other Information The executives’ Apparatuses. The content is then used to promote promotions to potential customers. Businesses that use this method employ community management teams to review the content and to ensure that it is in line with all rules and regulations.
External engagement
This is a kind of community management that targets customers and those who feel an innate feeling of belonging to a business. People who have a common passion and thus are more likely to discuss and participate in content are the main target audience for this type of community management.
Nike for instance offers a community for those who enjoy running. It’s known as”the Nike Run Club, and there are thousands of people using the application, making use of its services, and interacting with runners from all over the globe.
Internal engagement
It is also essential to build internal communities among teams, vendors as well as employees as well as suppliers, partners, and employers. These types of communities can bring people with similar interests and can create an atmosphere of belonging to the workplace.
The role of a community manager though usually hired for positions outside will also assist you in internal engagement. As teams become more remote, someone needs to lead and ensure that everyone is focused on achieving goals.
Smaller businesses can easily establish an internal community by using applications like Slack, which have internal channels that can help to improve communication.
Essentials in all community strategies must take into consideration
Once you’ve established your target audience and demographics You can then begin drafting an online community management strategy. Although this could include different methods of marketing, we’ve put together some tips to consider.
Create trendy content
What was popular last week may appear to be old news today. As a community manager, you must create exciting and relevant content that keeps your followers entertained.
Be informed of what the newest trends are in topics such as music, hashtags, video editing styles, and aesthetics. Don’t offer horizontal videos these days that have vertical reels.
Create new conversations with your target audience
Social media allows for frequent and instant interactions between customers and brands. Being a Community Manager you can share concepts and topics that relate to your own life and connect with the brand you’re representing. Discussions like these could help the community members see the company as a living thing, similar to someone they can interact with.
Conversations to give your brand an identity. They will draw people to your brand and keep them interested.
Moderate comments
Moderating negative comments can be essential to maintain the reputation of a brand. There may be irrelevant comments or even spam in your blog posts. These must be removed so that your customers have the best impression possible of your business.
Furthermore, community managers must be positive when responding to remarks that raise legitimate complaints or critiques. If brands appear to be sincere and helpful and helpful, they’ll appear as a business that wants to resolve issues instead of simply ignoring them.
You should work closely with a community manager expert
While community management is a must for any company or organization it’s difficult to complete by yourself. Engaging an experienced community manager could be beneficial to create and sustain a community that is engaged.
Explore the Upwork Talent Marketplace to locate a professional who can bring your communities to fruition for you. We’ve got hundreds of highly experienced community managers on the freelance market who are experts at their job, and make vibrant, authentic, and engaging communities on the internet. Begin by creating an announcement of the objectives of your project. Then, draw the attention of interested freelancers.
If you’re a community manager freelance Find online opportunities for community building on Upwork that pique your curiosity. All you need to do is sign up to create your profile and begin applying for positions today.
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