Community Management on Social Media: Basics & Tips

1. What is Community Management in Social Media and why is it so important (for businesses)?
2. What are the benefits of community management on social media?
3. What are the responsibilities of a social media community manager?
4. 4 essentials for successful community management on social media
5. 6 tips to take your community management to the next level
6. What tools can support successful community management on social media?
7. The Importance of Analysis in Community Management
8. Specifics of Community Management on Different Platforms
9. Conclusion

In today's world, where social media is indispensable from our everyday lives, the role of community management is becoming more central. It's not just about showing presence on social media through relevant content, but also about effective communication and building relationships with users. But what exactly does community management in social media marketing really mean and why should it not be missing in your online strategy? This article gives you a comprehensive overview.

What is Community Management in Social Media and why is it so important (for businesses)?

Community Management refers to the practices and techniques that brands and businesses use to manage their followerships on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and others. It's not just about posting content, but about building genuine, long-term relationships between the brand and users.

For businesses, the active exchange should be a basic requirement in the social media strategy. Anyone who does not plan resources for this task or wants to build the channel as automated as possible, will not achieve adequate results. A well-supervised community is more loyal, spends more time with your content, and is more likely to become a customer. This engagement is often underestimated, but can make the difference between a passing trend and sustained brand loyalty.

Furthermore, interactions by the users with the posts (which are promoted by active community management) lead to greater reach and visibility - both in the feed and in the stories, the reels tab and the discovery page (source: How Instagram Ranking works).

What are the benefits of community management on social media?

• Audience understanding: Companies that interact with their community have a deeper understanding of how their customers talk about or use their products. They gain a better understanding of the real problems and challenges of the target group and can adjust their brand messages and social media content accordingly.
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• Brand authenticity: Through active community management, brands can show their values and personality. Brands are also perceived as more approachable and likeable through communication.
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• Crisis management: If problems or misunderstandings arise, they can be intervened at an early stage. If the company strives to provide an adequate solution in comments or messages with complaints from dissatisfied customers, customer satisfaction can remain high even in a negative experience.
  
• Direct feedback: Companies receive direct feedback on content, but also on their products or services. A best-in-class example is @hendricksdesign, which consistently optimizes its 3D printable plant pots with the help of feedback from its 90,000 followers. to deliver maximum benefit to its customers.
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• Increased revenue: An engaged community is more likely to buy products or services. 

Picture: @hendricksdesign optimizes 3D-printable plant pots (screenshot by the author)

Through the active feedback from his community, @hendricksdesign achieves views in the millions for videos that focus exclusively on his products.

What are the responsibilities of a social media community manager?

A classic social media community manager is generally not responsible for creating content, but primarily works in the company's profile. Main tasks include:

• Co-design and monitoring of content plans.
• Support and response to comments and messages.
• Analysis of performance data, to adjust strategies.
• Collaboration with other departments, to ensure a consistent brand message.

Note: Depending on the company, resources, and size of the social media team, the responsibilities can vary greatly.

4 essentials for successful community management on social media

1. Regular interaction: Actively respond to all comments written under your posts. Don't just react with a "Thanks" to feedback, but have a real conversation and ask questions. This also pays off on your engagement rate.
2. Respond to messages: Respond promptly to your community's questions. To reduce the workload, you can set up FAQs or automations for recurring user inquiries with tools like ManyChat set up.
3. Listening: Collect constructive comments and messages to promote the optimization of the product range, service quality, or social media content. Tool tip: Use tools like SocialHub or Hunch, to track the conversations around your brand.
4. Authenticity: Be real and transparent in your communication. Communicate with the company's account as if it were a real person. Best practices for this are ProSieben, ALDI, LIDL or Deutsche Bahn on TikTok.

6 tips to take your community management to the next level

1. Showing humanity: Show empathy in your responses and remember that every comment or message comes from a real person.
2. Pro tip for maximum WOW factor: Respond to important messages with a voice message or even record a video of yourself. Especially as a startup or a smaller brand, you will gain a lot of sympathy and set yourself apart from competitors.
3. External engagement: Instead of waiting for comments under your posts, you should write humorous or constructive comments on other profiles. This leads to more exchange and usually also results in comments under your posts.
4. Integrate feedback: See criticism as an opportunity for improvement, thank the users for their feedback and actually put valuable suggestions into action.
5. Use tools: Invest in social community software to keep track and work efficiently. On OMR Reviews, you will find numerous social media tools that can make your everyday work easier.
6. Use trends: Deutsche Bahn often uses this strategy. When the Tagesschau announced the selection of Youth Words 2023, including the expression “auf lock” which means something like loose. DB comments “On locomotive? Finally a youth word that we also know” and reaps many likes and comments. In addition, they now use ambiguity in their own posts and receive a lot of engagement for it.

What tools can support successful community management on social media?

• Monitoring: Tools like Hootsuite and SocialHub help you monitor conversations about your brand.
• Planning and automation: With swat.io, Flick, Repurpose.io or Later you can plan your content in advance and post it automated.
• Analysis: Notjustanalytics, Hunch and Flick provide deep insights into the performance of your posts, so you know what works and what doesn't.
• Community Engagement: Some tools offer special features to foster your community's engagement. Check out the OMR Reviews article on Community Engagement .

The Importance of Analysis in Community Management

Every post published provides insights into how your audience ticks through organic metrics. Therefore, it is essential to analyze this data. The mentioned analysis tools provide valuable insights that can help to refine the strategy and produce content that finds increasingly more resonance. Which metrics are important and less important, can be found in this overview:

Specifics of Community Management on Different Platforms

Depending on the platform, there are granular differences in the area of community management that are influenced by individual features and user habits . While Facebook puts a strong focus on interactions in groups, comments under the posts in the feed of Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok have a higher priority. As the platforms are continually adopting new functions from each other, the differences are diminishing. All platforms also overlap with private messages.

Source: Axios research; Chart: Simran Parwani/Axios

Conclusion

Social media marketing is much more than just posting content. It's about building genuine relationships with users through active community management and creating a community around your brand. Most businesses do not consistently implement this, creating a real competitive advantage for those brands who take this opportunity seriously. With the right strategies, tools, and continuous engagement, you can ensure that your company is successful in the social media landscape.

We hope that this article has helped you understand the basics of community management on social media and gain valuable insights into the world of online engagement. If you have further questions, we are happy to assist you.