Social media community management is a crucial part of promoting your brand and putting it in good standing for your target audience. It’s often confused with social media management, which heavily focuses on representing your business and advertising it. However, community management is all about creating and nurturing your brand’s online community, which is a great way to create a loyal customer base.
When managing your online community, you’ll proactively engage with your customers by responding to their comments and maintaining lively conversations with prospective and current customers. You’ll also be monitoring conversations about your brand to have a good idea of what the public thinks of you. No matter how well you connect with your audience, there will always be negative comments, so you must stay on top of removing or deleting those you believe will harm your brand.
Social media community management may sound like a handful, but it’s much more doable when you understand what you need to do and the best way to do it. Here are four tips for connecting with your customers better through it:
Be Active
Audience engagement requires you to be proactive when responding to comments, which means you’ll have to respond as soon as possible. You’ll also have to listen to conversations and look for mentions of your brand outside of your social media profiles or circles, giving you a more comprehensive picture of how people perceive your brand. You can also use social listening tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social to help you with this.
Moderate Comments
The comments section is a fairly volatile place, as an innocuous comment can quickly snowball into a heated argument. It’s essential to go through your comments, delete the spam-like ones and those that go against your values, and ban or block fake accounts or bots to maintain the integrity of your community. Leaving these intact will harm your brand’s reputation, especially if they espouse hateful beliefs or contain malicious links.
Respond to Customer Complaints Right Away
Although social media was never meant to replace customer service, it has quickly grown into a place where customers can reach out to businesses and air their concerns. How and when you respond to these complaints will affect your reputation, as other prospective customers will be observing your behavior and decide whether or not to engage with you.
The faster you respond, the better. It’s best to respond to complaints within an hour, which 72 percent of social media users expect. However, not all negative reviews and complaints merit a response. Don’t waste your time responding to spam or fake reviews, as it won’t do anything. Instead, delete these and continue taking care of genuinely irate customers by acknowledging their complaints and providing solutions privately through email or direct message.
Work With Social Media Managers
A community manager works hand in hand with a social media manager to maintain a responsive online presence. If your team is stretched too thin, it’s worth hiring a social media management agency in LA to handle this aspect for you, as they’ll know how to track and monitor the responses you receive from your community. They can also note the keywords often used and the general sentiment towards your business, which will help you polish your social media strategy and other aspects of your operations.
Conclusion
Your online community plays a significant role in boosting your brand awareness and recognition, which is why it is worth putting your time and effort into it. With these tips, you’ll effectively manage your social media community and build a positive, responsive reputation for your brand.
C/C/G is a full-service brand marketing agency in Los Angeles specializing in content creation, social media management, creative marketing, and many more. We focus on creating impactful connections through social media through strategic activations. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you!