Every social media marketing strategy calls for community management to some extent. The degree to which these responsibilities take centre stage are dependent on the scale of each operation – while some smaller businesses may delegate community management as a secondary role for certain individuals, others require a full-time, devoted community manager. Either way, getting it wrong can completely alienate an audience.
Community management is often looked at by social media managers with a touch of disdain – a box to be ticked. But the truth is that for any business serious about converting visitors to their page into anything other than passive observers, good community management is key.
The issue here isn’t one of misunderstanding, it’s motivation. Marketers and Comms professionals are well aware of the need for community management, but find it naturally taking a back seat to other areas of their social media strategy.
Community management needn’t be looked at as a burden – on the contrary, it should be seen as the epitome of engagement. By avoiding some common mistakes you can be sure that your community remains on your side and seriously increase your chances of converting visitors to your page.
Be sure to respond in a timely fashion
The benefits of a good response time are obvious, especially on Facebook where users can see how long it normally takes for you to respond. A good response time is integral to making a community feel valued and respected. Remember that an active posting strategy is also something of an invited for engagement. When you respond to at least 90 percent of messages within two minutes you will get yourself the elusive “Very responsive to messages” icon – a good accolade for community-focused businesses.
Listen and respond correctly
Clearly it isn’t worth responding to a message with something irrelevant just for the response factor. You need to be sure that you are on hand to respond appropriately for each query. What this looks like will depend on your business and the nature of messages that you often receive. It can be worth drafting up a list of common queries and the sort of response that you should have – but don’t lose the human factor…
Sound like a human being – have some fun
Sounding like a bot is a sure-fire way to turn off any audience member. This is your ultimate chance to show off the human side of your brand so don’t be afraid to have some fun if the message calls for it. This voice will relate to your business and to the message in question – fun tones for fun messages, concerned tones for serious ones and complaints.
Don’t try and make it about you or your business
So the likelihood is that a user’s query is going to relate to your business, that’s a given. But what you should avoid is trying to turn around a question and make it into something else. It is not a chance to try and push a sale for a service that your audience hasn’t asked for (unless that is expressly relevant to them), and it isn’t a chance to pass the buck about mistakes. Keep focused and thank them for reaching out to you.
