Equinet Academy
Are your social media interactions limited to likes and shares? Social media community management is crucial in transforming casual followers into dedicated brand advocates. It extends beyond content creation, involving active engagement, timely responses to feedback, and the cultivation of meaningful relationships. Whether you’re handling inquiries, fostering discussions, or resolving concerns, a well-structured community management strategy helps build trust, loyalty, and long-term engagement.
Social media community management is a key necessity in holding a successful and effective social media presence. Although the concept may seem intimidating if you have no prior experience, this guide will break down the process by giving you a step-by-step look at how to build a strong social media community management framework to take your brand’s digital presence to the next level.
While content creation is essential, effective community management amplifies its impact. A well-managed social media community strengthens brand trust, enhances engagement, and fosters meaningful customer relationships. Here are the key benefits of an active community management approach:
Now that you understand its importance, let’s explore how you can build an effective community management strategy.
The right social media platform is key to building an engaged online community. Different platforms cater to specific demographics and content styles. Here’s how to align your community strategy with the most suitable platform:
Use tools like Statista to analyse platform demographics and prioritise your social media efforts accordingly. Statistica publishes analytics on the demographics of social media, which can help you determine which platform is perfect for your business.
As seen in one of their reports, 77% of X users in Singapore are male, which could indicate that it is the most appropriate platform if your target audience consists largely of men. Researching and retaining information like this could help strategise your social media efforts and prioritise them accordingly.
If you need some ideas for social media communities you can build, here are some examples:
A deep understanding of your audience is fundamental to effective community management. By analysing their behaviors, interests, and content preferences, you can craft interactions that resonate and drive meaningful engagement.
A great example of audience awareness is McDonald’s. The brand tailors its social media strategy to local cultures while maintaining a consistent brand voice:
McDonald’s Australia used the Australian Football League (AFL), Australia’s most popular watched and attended sports league, to tap into their customers’ desires.
In Singapore, McDonald’s uses things like popular festivals to tap into customers’ emotions and desires. McDonald’s has demonstrated time and time again that while they are an international company with a wide reach, they still have their ears to the ground and understand their customers well.
One of the most effective ways to understand your audience is to engage them directly. Encouraging feedback through polls, surveys, and interactive posts not only helps you tailor content but also reinforces your brand’s commitment to customer satisfaction.
Additionally, accepting suggestions or feedback and changing your content accordingly can also be a good indication for your followers of a willingness to improve and be better for them. It encourages open communication on both sides, which can help strengthen brand loyalty more authentically and genuinely.
Use tools like the “Poll” feature available on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and X to gather opinions and determine what options are the most popular. Besides that, actions taken can be as simple as reading through and responding to DMs (direct messages) and comments.
Take a look at how McDonald’s interacts with their customers on social media. Complaints are attended to promptly and with care and concern.
Defining success is crucial to evaluating the effectiveness of your community management strategy. Whether it’s increased engagement, follower growth, or higher conversion rates, setting measurable and attainable goals ensures your efforts align with business objectives.
Common identifiers of success would include a healthy:
Once you have chosen identifiers for success, you would then need to establish SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals. This is important as you would need areas to look at to conclude whether your current strategy is effective.
If an area of success for your brand would mean an increase in followers, set a goal number and a timeline to meet this goal based on your current reach and strategy. Have a good mix of short, mid, and long-term goals to allow for consistent, actionable steps to be taken. You should utilise social media analytics, which will be discussed in detail later in this article, to track your progress and determine whether you have met your goal.
Consistency is the foundation of a strong social media presence. By establishing a content calendar, you set expectations for your audience while maintaining regular engagement. A predictable posting schedule fosters familiarity and keeps your brand top of mind.
To add on to this, it is crucial to reciprocate interactions from followers. If they comment on a post, give a quick ‘like’ to their comments and, wherever possible, reply with something, even if it is short and simple, to ensure that engagement is two-sided.
Be sure to be authentic and address each person as an individual when interacting with your followers – the human element behind your brand will feel trustworthy and personal to your audience. When engagement is kept active, a community thrives.
Equinet Academy does a great job of this on their private alumni LinkedIn Group. More than posting consistently, they engage with their members actively as well.
Here are some examples:
Community management takes a lot of work, which is why it’s important to measure what works and what doesn’t to optimise efforts.
Tracking key performance metrics is essential for refining your community management strategy. While engagement numbers don’t always capture the full community experience, analytics provide valuable insights into what resonates with your audience. Leveraging data helps you optimise your approach for sustained success.
Choosing an appropriate metric for measurement depends on your goals, platforms chosen, and the needs of your company.
There are a few different methods of measurement that can be used:
Social media listening refers to the process of monitoring your social media platforms for mentions, reviews, specified keywords, and even tracking your competitors’ activity. You can then analyse this information and gain a deeper insight on how your strategy is working out. We explored the best tools for social media listening and monitoring here.
Some social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and X, have an internal analytics tool that breaks down statistics for your account in an easy-to-understand way. Some of the trackable metrics include follower rates, engagement rates, and conversion rates from advertising.
If your chosen platform does not include an internal analytics tool, you can turn to tools such as Google Analytics or Sprout Social, which help you track the above-mentioned metrics for each platform. We created a list of the top social media analytics tools for you to use – check it out on your next lunch break.
Google Analytics – Audience Overview
While that might have been a lot to take in, hopefully, this information has given you an idea of how to create a framework for community management on social media.
Following that, the next segment will touch on some of the best practices for community management so that you and your brand can make the most of social media marketing.
Creating clear community guidelines ensures that interactions align with your brand’s values and messaging. Setting expectations for behavior, contributions, and engagement fosters a respectful and supportive online environment. Setting guidelines may not be the simplest task as it can differ on each platform but thinking about negative situations you would hope to avoid and what you want for your community can help in putting it together.
For your members, you should have expectations of their behaviour, contributions, and comments. For example, disallow terms that could be construed as bullying or offensive terms to ensure that your community remains one that is seen as welcoming to all. Post these guidelines somewhere that is accessible to all members and remind members of it whenever it may be necessary.
Here’s how Equinet Academy constructed their community guidelines which can be found on their “About This Group” section on their private LinkedIn group that was spoken about earlier.
Feel free to borrow the structure of the guidelines for your use.
When it comes to internal guidelines, you should implement a strategy for handling difficult situations to avoid them from becoming uncontrollable. In cases of negative feedback, an initial response should be provided, one that acknowledges their complaint and offers an apology through community management while trying to resolve the situation as directed by an appropriate person in the company.
Having community guidelines can simplify interactions and limit any possible controversies or backlash that could hit your brand.
Regularly evaluating your community’s health and engagement levels ensures that your strategy remains effective. By monitoring interactions, trends, and potential issues, you can make proactive adjustments to maintain a thriving community.
Communities and everything that happens within it should stay relevant and it is your responsibility to check-in regularly. Keeping an ear to the ground at all times can help with providing proactive responses to any issues that might pop up, or could even mean being able to take advantage of any trends that are occurring.
A great example of a brand using social listening to improve its social media presence is Nike. They stay on top of trends like pros – sometimes, even creating their own. In 2018, their ‘Dream Crazy’ campaign highlighted the achievements of sports stars and went viral.
Of course, like most successful brands, they use social listening to respond to customer complaints swiftly.
Nike does a great job of using influencers that are relevant to their community to keep them engaged.
Social listening might seem daunting – always having to stay on top of trends – but in this day and age, it’s made easy with the wide range of social media listening tools at your disposal. Here’s a list of some of the best social listening tools, once again, in case you missed it.
By performing social listening and tracking all mentions of your brand across social media, you will have everything necessary to assess the state of your community and how happy or satisfied they are with your brand.
Authenticity is the cornerstone of successful community management. Genuine interactions foster trust and loyalty, making your brand more relatable and approachable. By staying true to your brand voice, you create an environment where followers feel valued.
In a survey conducted by the McCarthy Group, millennials, who make up the bulk of social media users, appreciate genuineness and dislike the idea of constantly being sold a product. You and your brand can circumvent this by ensuring your content, voice, and behaviour perpetuate authenticity.
As mentioned earlier, interactions with followers, keeping communication open, and showing a willingness to change are all actions you can undertake to help you stand out from competitors and be known as an authentic brand.
Alongside this, being open about social issues could also support your aims. A 2019 report by SproutSocial found that 66% of consumers believed that brands should weigh in on social issues, due to their influence and reach, and that it could spark tangible progress or change. Consumers were more likely to provide support to brands who were open about real issues in the world.
Again, Nike can be looked at for their stellar social media presence in this area. They constantly stay on top of social issues, as can be seen in the following example.
Colin Kaepernick, a now former American Football player, knelt during the American National Anthem during one of his games, to take a stand (no pun intended) for African American civil rights. He received massive backlash for the move, and Nike took the opportunity to feature him in their ‘Dream Crazy’ ad campaign which included this Emmy-winning advertisement as well.
While many criticised Nike – and even burned their previously bought Nike apparel – many more saw the move as brave, and stood in solidarity with the brand. This, in turn, caused a boom in Nike’s sales.
On a different note, in the same report, it was also found that 9 in 10 consumers would be willing to give a brand a second chance after a bad experience, if the brand was completely transparent about their actions. These examples emphasise the importance of authenticity for brands on social media and how being genuine can lead to a better reputation, larger support, and even higher sales.
Active engagement transforms followers into brand advocates. Encouraging discussions, responding to feedback, and incorporating user-generated content enhance your community’s involvement and loyalty. Here are effective ways to spark engagement:
PRISM+ excels in engagement by featuring customer-generated content, showcasing real-life product setups. This approach encourages community involvement while reinforcing brand authenticity.
Take free-reign of how you want to generate your own user-generated content. The key is to create an ongoing cycle that touches on both being authentic and encouraging engagement between you and your followers.
A consistent brand voice strengthens recognition and trust across all social media platforms. By aligning messaging, tone, and engagement style, you create a cohesive and familiar experience for your audience.
If multiple individuals are working on your social media platforms, make certain that they all understand your brand voice and how to best portray it. When your brand voice differs between platforms, it can confuse followers and lead to a disinterest in your content.
Create a set of definitive characteristics that encompass what your brand stands for, and align your brand voice to these characteristics. In other words, social media guidelines, which we discuss how to create in this article.
When more than one individual is working on your social media, it gets harder to maintain consistency, but having a list of values to refer to can cut down on any misinterpretations.
Social media community management has many moving parts, making it no easy feat to pull off, which is where Community Managers come in. The right Community Manager can work wonders for your social platform, but not every business needs one. Let’s take a look at what a Social Media Community Manager is, the duties of the role, and whether hiring one is the right move for your business.
A Community Manager is someone who conceptualises and implements a management strategy best suited for your brand, to cultivate a thriving and strong community. They act as the bridge between brand and audience, interacting with customers and fans on behalf of the brand.
You might be thinking, “What’s the difference between a Community Manager and a Social Media Manager?” Although there is some overlap between the two professions, their aims and intentions differ greatly.
Social Media Managers focus mainly on content creation across platforms and determining its reach, whereas Community Managers focus on facilitating relationships between the brand and community members and even among members themselves. A Community Manager’s aims and strategies go beyond trying to sell a product; they establish and promote a lasting relationship between brand and consumer.
Community Managers, above all, strive to maintain a consistent brand voice and image across all platforms. They may work closely with social media managers and content creators to ensure the same messages are being portrayed, or may even be in charge of creating and scheduling all posts. They handle everything community-related, from customer feedback to following up on giveaway posts.
In essence, they do exactly everything this article has discussed thus far. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of their duties:
Successfully managing a community online is a task that requires an enormous amount of time and effort, which is something you might not be able to afford, and requires skills that you may not possess.
In cases like this, you can consider hiring a Community Manager, whether it be part-time or full-time, who can fully understand your brand and implement a strategy that brings your online community to life. A good Community Manager should generally be:
They should be able to create or, at least, monitor all content posted across your brand’s social media.
A good Community Manager knows when to be appreciative of or apologetic to members.
Aware of the needs and wants of your community members, they actively seek out ways to address them.
They should understand your brand voice and messaging and know how to properly convey this online.
Community management requires a certain level of thought and precision to maintain consistency across all platforms.
They are on top of every trend and know exactly what’s going on all over social media.
Whether you’re a marketer or a business owner, it is essential to understand the importance of community management and how it can give your brand the digital boost it may need.
In this day and age, consumers want more out of their favorite brands than just the products or services they offer. They want a community, one that is open and communicative and encourages all kinds of interactions. They expect authentic and genuine relationships with their favorite brands without necessarily being sold something. With a successful community management strategy, any brand can achieve this and gain a thriving community of loyal followers who provide lasting support online and offline.
If you’re interested in learning more about the extensive world of social media marketing, sign up for our Social Media Marketing Certification Course. In this two-day digital marketing course held in person in Singapore or virtually, you will receive all the information, concepts, and frameworks needed to run any successful social media campaign. Take a look at some of the other digital marketing courses we offer here to develop a well-rounded skill set and, if you complete all seven core modules in our Certified Digital Marketing Strategist V2 (CDMS) Programme, such as:
This comprehensive program will also add an essential set of industry-relevant digital marketing skills to your resume. These skills will enable you to make notable improvements to marketing conversions and return on investment.
Walter is the Founder and Chief Content Strategist of Cooler Insights, with over 25 years of leadership experience in content & social media marketing, PR, strategy, and industry development. He is also the lead trainer for the Social Media courses here at Equinet Academy.
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Walter is the Founder and Chief Content Strategist of Cooler Insights, with over 25 years of leadership experience in content & social media marketing, PR, strategy, and industry development. He is also the lead trainer for the Social Media courses here at Equinet Academy.
Receive the latest blog articles right into your inbox.
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