04 Aug
Why is a community manager so important? Managing your community becomes more and more important as your customer base grows.. It is therefore necessary that someone within your company is the interlocutor for your community. If you doubt it, this article will prove to you the need for a community manager.
If you hope to build a long-term business with a strong brand, it becomes important to hire a CM.
What is community management?
Your community is usually very large and spread all over the internet. These are your networks on Facebook, TwitterSnapchat, Quora, YouTube, InstagramYou can also use the Pinterest, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, Reddit, the forums, and even the comment sections of articles.
Your community consists of your current customers, target audiences and all the people who interact with your brand directly or indirectly online.
Brands that do not have a community management plan miss opportunities to :
- Managing complaints of the customers;
- Turning customers into loyal fans ;
- Convincing people of influence and potential clients;
- Networking with other brands and develop partnerships with them;
- Get feedback on the raw products;
Social media or community management?
It is important to understand the difference between community management and social media marketing. These two fields have their own priorities.
Social media marketing (or social media) is the production and distribution of social content to reach new customers and communicate with your existing customers. Here you can focus on elements such as reach, engagement and the amount of traffic a message brings to your site.
Community management (or community management) is what happens after and beyond your social media posting. It's about customer service, listening to the Internet and actively participating in discussions related to your brand.
Community management often begins on a smaller and more intimate scale. But it can strengthen your brand presence inside or outside your social media pages, hence the need for a community manager.
The 4 key points of community management
In this article, we will break down community management into four parts:
1. Follow-up: Listen to and follow conversations about your brand.
Community management would not be possible without a continuous effort of social listening: monitoring the conversations that matter to your brand.
2. Commitment: Maintaining conversations. And proactively engaging with customers, prospects and influencers.
Every comment you make online leaves a digital footprint. The more positive feedback you and your community generate, the stronger your brand is. That's why it's important to not just start these conversations, but keep them alive, especially since many social media algorithms use engagement signals like comments to determine what should be broadcast in our news feeds.
3. Moderation: Eliminate comments and conversations that do not add value, and resolve customer complaints.
Another important function of community management is the management of your online reputation. This is to ensure that your social profiles are free of spam and that any negative comments are taken into account.
The #PerleDuJour is brought to you by @freemobile (via @Tinlenval) pic.twitter.com/duLzw3waUr
- CM Hall of Fame (@CMHallofFame) September 26, 2014
To start, hide the spam that affects the quality of your comments section. Avoid hiding or deleting sensitive comments, as this could be misinterpreted as censorship or deception, and cause a much bigger problem for your brand perception.
If it is a common question that you can answer quickly, make your answer public so that others with similar concerns can see it.
It's a good idea to also include a name or your initials at the end of your customer service comments to show there's a human at the other end of the line.
4. Measurement: Analyze how your brand is perceived and get real, unfiltered feedback.
With all the actions we've covered so far, you'll have an idea of how your community perceives your brand, where you can improve and even what products you can add.
With CaptéWe have asked our community a lot to find out how they feel about the tool and how to improve it. Thanks to our community, we have added many new features (translation, mobile function, typography customization etc...).
How do you hire a community manager?
You no longer doubt the need for a community manager? Indeed, it is worth having someone dedicated to community management. It ensures consistency in all your conversations and familiarity with your audience.
You can be your own community manager in the beginning, but if you are a one-man business and your company is growing strongly and gets a lot of attention, it is worth hiring someone to take on this task.
If you decide to disclaim this responsibility, you must ensure that the person you hire has the following characteristics:
- Strong communication and social networking skills;
- Empathy, patience and tact (always important for customer service) ;
- Creativity, sense of humour and ability to adapt to your brand's voice;
- The ability to sift through social data to find opportunities and ideas;
- A good knowledge of your social media channels of interest and tools like Hootsuite ;
- An understanding of your niche or the curiosity to know it thoroughly;
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