The Ultimate Guide to Community Management [According to Experts Who Do It Daily] – InstantFollowerz

According to us SOCIAL MEDIA Trends Report86% of SOCIAL MEDIA marketers say building an active online community is key to a successful SOCIAL MEDIA strategy in 2024.

You know what that means? It’s time to get good at community management.

And if you’re like me, you don’t want to be you’re good to something. You want to excel. You want to build a community that rivals all others.

That’s why I’ve put together everything you need to know about community management, including practical tips on how to effectively integrate it into your marketing strategy.

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Why your brand should care about community management

Gone are the days when people only passively consumed online content. Today, people expect direct interaction with both your content and your brand.

neither one nor the other Victoria Khutornacommunications specialist at PROMOTIONSPut it:

“People are likely to go to a company that not only sells at a reasonable price, but also communicates humanely, jokes, supports, or frankly admits mistakes and goes out of their way to correct them.”

Enter: community management.

Effective community management allows your business to:

• Get real-time feedback and gather ideas from your customers.
• Provide timely support to fans, customers and other stakeholders.
• Increase brand and product awareness within your target demographic.
• Gain deeper insight into your customers’ preferences and expectations.
• Build relationships between your brand and your audience.

And the best community managers know how to create spaces where your brand becomes an integral part of your audience’s lives.

Why community management is important

The payoff for building a successful community is quite high. Here are some of the reasons why:

• It builds trust and brand loyalty. Communities give you the space to build a strong relationship with your members through consistent communication and active engagement.
• This creates a valuable feedback loop. You get an inside look into your audience’s preferences, needs and pain points – what they like, what they don’t, what works and what could be improved.
• It humanizes your brand. Through real conversations and authenticity, your members feel like they’re interacting with real people (not a faceless entity).
• It can generate unique user-generated content. From case studies to photos and videos, you can leverage community content in your own marketing channels.
• It drives traffic and conversions. Community management is a powerful tool for conversions, and organic interactions with followers create natural opportunities to drive them to your products.

Not convinced? Learn more about the importance of community management here: Why is community management important?

Community Managers: Who They Are and Why You Need Them

According to Joe Kevensthe founder B2B SaaS Reviews, “The community needs to be actively managed to create and maintain the ongoing engagement that community members seek.”

He adds:Without sufficient community management, you risk your community discussions becoming stale and your user engagement declining — or losing them from the community altogether.”

Here is a community manager is coming.

What is the role of the utility manager?

James Wattscommunity expert and founder teach.iosays that the role of community manager “to be the voice, ears and heart of the brand within the community.”

Community managers wear many hats including:

• Developing and implementing strategies to build, grow and nurture the community.
• Creating engaging content that resonates with the community and measuring success.
• Acts as a brand liaison by responding to comments and actively encouraging member participation.
• Enforcing community guidelines, ensuring respectful interactions and removing inappropriate content.
• Stay on top of trends to identify new opportunities for content creation or engagement.

Watts continues, “They are there to welcome and help people, start conversations and clear up any doubts.”

Are you ready to hire a community manager? Follow these steps: How to hire a community manager

Types of community management

The easiest way to look at the different types of community management is to use SPACES pattern.

This framework organizes community management around two main elements: 1) their primary function and 2) community focus.

The acronym “SPACES” represents six different categories of community management:

• (S) Support: It allows members to answer questions and help solve each other’s problems. Best for: Brands with detailed product lines (eg software).
• (P) Product: It allows customers to share feedback and ideas about your products and services. Best for: Consumer-oriented companies that rely on user input for growth.
• (A) Procurement: Creates a network of ambassadors and advocates to promote your products and build brand awareness. Best for: Startups and newly established brands.
• (C) Contribution: It encourages users to post content on your behalf or collaborate on projects together. Best for: Media companies and creative industries.
• (E) Engagement: Internal engagement communities serve as hubs for employees and partners. Best for: Large organizations with many departments. Communities of external engagement connect consumers based on common interest. Best for: Lifestyle brands and companies with strong brand identities.
• (S) Success: It helps customers work together to effectively use your product and achieve the desired results. Best for: Service-oriented businesses where product success is tied to continuous and proper use.

For a more in-depth breakdown of each type, I’ve got you covered: 6 types of community management (+ tips from experts who manage them)

How to build a community management strategy

This step by step guide guides you through everything you need to know about building a community management strategy (with advice from experts who know their stuff).

But while you’re here, I’ll give you a TL;DR:

1. Define your goals: Define what success looks like. Ask yourself: What do I want to achieve by building and maintaining a community?
2. Identify your audience: Understand who you want to reach. Ask yourself: What are the needs, behaviors and characteristics of my target demographic?
3. Choose the right channels: Meet your community where it is. Ask yourself: Which platforms does my audience use the most?
4. Set your goals: Quantify your goals based on time, budget and resources. Ask yourself: What is our benchmark?
5. Post regularly and interact with your audience: Create consistent content streams and actively communicate. Ask yourself: How can I keep my community alive and my brand top notch?
6. Measure your results: List your most important metrics and how you plan to track them. Ask yourself: What is the best way to evaluate our performance and refine our strategy?

For more on this, see: Building a community management strategy that actually creates a connection

Best practices for community management

Effective community management can turn your followers into loyal customers and potential brand advocates.

Here are some quick and dirty best practices to help you manage yours smoothly:

1. Communicate clear expectations from the start. Set firm rules for contributors regarding content guidelines and participation guidelines. This will help you create a safe place for people to interact with each other and your brand.
2. Get your members involved early (and often). Involve your members in the whole process and build a community with them – not just for them. People will want to invest in something they helped create.
3. Encourage interactions between members. Give your members a platform to interact with each other. The best communities thrive apart from you and your brand.
4. Recognize, encourage and reward participation. Show your members that you care about their time and commitment to your brand with regular tokens of appreciation.
5. Personalize your engagements (and be human). Make your audience feel like they’re talking to a real person in every interaction (because they usually are).
6. Stay true to yourself and your brand. Be honest, transparent and authentic. It’s okay to make mistakes sometimes – as long as you own it. That’s how you build a community based on trust.
7. Use AI and technology to your advantage. We are in our AI era. Use the free tools available to you (HubSpot’s SOCIAL MEDIA management software) to deliver maximum value.
8. Be attentive and respond quickly. Timeliness is so important. And when you respond quickly and often, your audience is more likely to do the same.
9. Celebrate milestones with your community. Have fun with it! Have you exceeded your follower goal? Throw yourself (and your community) a party. Sharing moments like this creates a bond.
10. Maintain your brand voice at all times. Your brand voice is what makes your business unique and recognizable to your customers, partners and employees.
11. Evolve with the trends. By the time I post this, it’s very possible that a new trend has emerged that is changing the way we think about community management. Make sure you are familiar.
12. Always audit. Pay close attention to how your community is doing. Are people engaged? Are you attracting the right audience? Check your metrics regularly and make improvements accordingly.

Want more? You can find out all the best practices here: 12 community management best practices to attract your biggest advocates

Examples of community management in action

Spotify Ideas

This community helps Spotify drive product innovation based on user experience. Here, Spotify users can submit ideas and recommendations for future Spotify innovations.

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Current

The Topicals community is socially oriented. They actively connect with their audience on SOCIAL MEDIA. Additionally, Topicals uses it as a way to help people understand the science behind their products and learn how to use them.

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The Spot

HubSpot’s online community is a great example of audience-centric community management. This community is dedicated to supporting diversity, equity and inclusion among underrepresented professionals.

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These are just some of the many examples. I’ll send you here for a deeper look at these examples (and more of our favorites): 7 community management examples you can learn from

Your community is waiting

The power of community management is undeniable.

It humanizes your brand, increases brand awareness, provides valuable customer insights, and fosters trust and loyalty among your members.

If you ask me, these are all vital ingredients for long-term success.