The importance of community management support on social media

A form of social media customer service, community managers, have become a hot digital marketing role in the last few years.  But what do they actually do on day to day basis? In this blog post, we will explain why exactly community management support is so important in building a strong online presence of your brand.

Who is a community manager, and what is his role?

A community manager (CM) is a person working in a digital marketing team, responsible for all of your social media channels. Community manager is considered an expert in social media customer service. Furthermore, this is a person informed about all the latest trends in an ever-changing world of social media.

Community manager is also considered as the voice of your brand. This person should closely pay attention to what is being said about your brand on social media. This is done by using available tools for social media monitoring. By doing so, it is easier to create an effective social media marketing strategy.

Community manager should also use social media to detect and attract new clients and customers. This should be a person who has a very good understanding of your company’s audience. By constantly communicating with them, community manager knows what your potential clients are looking for and what they need. This is why quality community management support is so important when managing social media.

This should also reflect when creating monthly or weekly content plans for social media. When doing so, community manager should take into account the most frequently asked questions and try and give answers to those in the form of social media posts. Of course, this should be specially adapted and implemented depending on which channel you choose to use.

A part of community management support is also keeping an eye on key metrics like engagement, reach or followers count. At least on a monthly basis. By continuously monitoring these, it is much easier to come up with conclusions and improve existing strategies for your social media channels.

In the end, the most basic task of every community manager is to communicate with brands’ online audience regularly. As the name of the role itself suggests, community manager should create a strong community of people who are passionate about your brand. That is done by answering comments, giving a human touch to your brand’s image, and creating engagement even on the posts, which may be less interesting or attractive.

Social Media Manager VS Community Manager

You might have already heard of a community manager, but what is the job of a social media manager? Many people advocate for the opinion that these two roles are not that different. The reality is that they often merge into one.

In theory, a social media manager should be a person who creates an overall strategy for all of the social media channels. While community manager is more “on the field” type of job position, social media manager should be a person who chooses the tools that will be used by community managers when implementing the strategy in reality.

A social media manager should also be the person who defines the exact tone of communication with the audience according to the brand’s guidelines. This is very important to establish before even opening your social media accounts. Community manager should know from the start what type of communication to use. If it is completely formal or you’re communicating with followers in a more non-formal friendly way, which is generally used in social media support.

Lastly, the social media manager is in charge of organizing and managing the budget given for the implementation of social media strategy. Community manager shouldn’t be bothered with the “accounting“ side of social media managing. Budgeting and advertising should always be handled by different people within your digital marketing team.

Social media crisis

The most common mistake when it comes down to crisis situations and social media support is a too fast reaction. These kinds of situations require strategic planning, which all falls down to creating a detailed social media strategy at the start. You just can’t have a good social media customer service without it.

Crisis management is much easier when you know the exact steps to take in every stage of the situation. Many famous brands had serious problems over something posted on their social media accounts. Even in situations of releasing whole campaigns across various media channels, social media is a place where you’ll receive your, so to say, final judgment.

Just remember Kendall Jenner – Pepsi commercial fiasco. After releasing the main TV commercial for the campaign, social media exploded with criticism. This resulted in Pepsi shutting the whole campaign down. Apology statements were released from both the brand and its ambassador, model, and social media star, Kendall Jenner.

This situation just proves the power of social media and its effects on marketing today. People’s opinions are today louder than ever before. If you want to raise your sales number and create a strong brand, it is all about building a strong community.

How to deal with it as a community manager?

The key to solving a crisis on social media is good team coordination and strong leadership. When it comes to difficult questions, make sure to have a know-it-all person on hold. He or she should give you quick and exact answers regarding the different products and services your brand offers. As a community manager you don’t have to know every single aspect of every brand product. But you need to have a person in your team who does in order to provide excellent support.

In the end, it is important to say that many negative situations and complaints can be avoided by answering all the social media inquiries in real-time. This demands a lot of time and long hours, but you need to take into account that social media never sleeps. Angry customers are the worst when combined with social media reach. If you want to learn more about this topic, read our in-depth blog post on Social media crisis management.

Key to good CM support?

A quick solution is to organize your community managers in shifts. The recommended norm is to do the comments and inbox checkups every two hours. This way, your customers won’t wait for the answers too long. Of course, this depends a lot on the type of product you’re selling and the type of audience you’re catering to.

For some brands two checkups, a day will be fine. For others, who receive huge amounts of engagement on their social media, Page checkups should be even more frequent. And remember, every unanswered question is a missed opportunity to sell your product. So, make your social media support a priority when planning a successful digital marketing strategy.

If you’re still not quite sure of what community manager job title requires of you, check our Infographic: A day in the life of a community manager.