It can often be forgotten about, or not done quite right, but community management is an important part of social media management. At J&PR all contracts for social media content creation and management include community management, and for good reason!
Whether you’re a small business running your own socials, or a marketer managing a large company’s account, everyone should be doing it.
What exactly is community management?
It’s a slightly fluffy term, but it essentially means handling your community on social media.
That’s messages, comments, likes, reviews… you name it. Any form of engagement from people on your socials (and digital presence, don’t forget to check Google My Business!) falls under the community management umbrella.
Why do I need to do it?
There are two main reasons why you need to carry out community management on your social media pages: because algorithms love it and so does your audience!
Of course, being on top of your social media engagement means you have great insight into what your audience is loving and engaging with the most, which you can use to improve your business.
Let’s talk algorithms!
Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn algorithms all reward pages and profiles that interact with other pages and profiles, by showing their content to more people; this increases engagement, which means your content will be shown to even more people (and so on…).
We all know what happens when more people see your content - more people will want to use your business!
This means, if you’re not answering comments and messages on company pages then you’re missing out on a whole new audience, and plenty of new customers and clients.
It pays to be nice
Not only will good community management be loved by algorithms, but it will also be loved by your audience too… and that’s the most important bit!
Responding to messages, comments and reviews promptly means your audience feels valued and that little bit special - which we all want to feel!
If new customers are taking a look at your social media platforms before choosing whether to use your business or not, they’re more likely to choose a business that engages with its audience than one that ignores its followers. Imagine Googling a company and seeing no one has responded to the reviews left on its Google My Business page - it doesn’t paint a good picture!
It could also be the difference between an unhappy customer having an issue resolved and returning to your business, or never coming back and spreading the word.
How do I do it well?
That’s where we come in!
Community management shouldn’t be difficult, and it certainly shouldn’t be a time-eating chore. Yet, with changing algorithms and less free time, it can seem that way.
To do community management well you should be staying up to date with changing social media algorithms, so you know you’re benefiting your social presence rather than damaging it, and should be dedicating time at the beginning and end of each day (and sometimes the middle!) to check your social media notifications.
If you want the task of community management being taken off your hands completely, contact us and we can manage your social platforms AND content… not only will your content be created by professionals, we’ll also make sure your social media platforms are checked regularly and are managed in a way that will keep those pesky algorithms happy.
You may want to keep everything in-house, but perhaps you’d like to make sure you’re managing your social media platforms properly and would like some tips on how to stay on the right side of the social algorithms. If this is the case, book in with us for a one-to-one Two-hour Takeover session!
Contact us today and let’s make sure those socials are shining.
