Top 5 Community Management Tactics to Help Your Business

by Burke Dorman
3 mins read
A network of people connected to each other.

Besides making a profit, pleasing the customer has always been the primary goal of business. In fact, the two are more inextricably linked than you might think. And, in the digital world, customer service operates very differently. Our motto is: “The 24-hour world requires 24-hour attention” – this is especially true when it comes to Community Management in the digital age, especially in the realm of social media, while running campaigns, contests, ads, or simply organic pages in general.In General, Strong community management can help your business by:- Answering consumer questions that may otherwise prevent a sale- Responding to and quelling customer complaints before they escalate into a PR nightmare- Controlling the social conversation around your product or service by hiding/deleting spam, rude comments, etc- Gathering key insight into customer desires in order to influence product life-cycle and changes- Gathering key insights on consumer behavior to influence future marketing campaigns- Reporting consumer complaints (product complaints, Adverse Events) to client wherein legal procedures are involved and required- Responding to questions and comments quickly and efficiently while maintaining brand voice and professionalismHere are a few key ways that you can improve upon your community management practices to ensure that you are catering to your customers’ questions and desires, and how community management can help your campaign or brand reach its full potential.1. Decision TreesBefore launching a campaign, it is generally a great idea to establish a pre-approved list of answers to questions that you foresee your audience asking over the course of the campaign. By placing consumer questions into “buckets”, with corresponding answers, you will be able to quickly answer consumer questions without needing to get approval on every single letter you type. This enables you as the community manage to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to handling complaints, questions, etc. For example, if you are launching a campaign contest that requires users to submit barcodes to enter, you might want to consider the following:- what barriers will people come across?- who and how can your audience contact someone if they are having an issue?- do you have an email account set up to funnel through questions and complaints?- how will you address spam / rude comments?- how will you address positive comments?Making the right decision tree is essentially like prepping a toolkit for a long journey into the wild. Having what you need to survive before you leave, rather than looking for the answer while you’re out there will make all the difference throughout your campaigns journey from launch, to close.2. Social MonitoringThe social media world is a heartbeat that never stops. As such, it’s important to always keep your ear on its pulse. Daily social media monitoring of your channels (be that the host channel of the client you are working for as well as their campaign channels and advertisements, should they exist) are of paramount importance. This may seem like a no-brainer but mastering timely and efficient social monitoring processes is no easy task. It is important that you analyze the engagement of your campaign to determine when your audience is most active. Once you figure this out, make sure that you are monitoring at this time, as well as minimal 3 times per day (morning, afternoon, evening) – as well as on weekends. This will not only ensure that you are catching important comments that may impact your sales or your campaign at the right time, but also that you are able to answer them quickly as well.3. Data Mining Engaged UsersThose who engage with your content or campaign say a lot about your audience in general. Take this opportunity to record certain non-personal aspects about them: where does most of your engaged audience reside? What gender are they? What are their interests or what pages to they frequent? Gathering audience insights is a criminally underused tactic that can go a long way in shaping your present and future campaigns. 4. Social ListeningSocial listening is the parent of social monitoring and involves listening for your brand or campaign everywhere on the web, not simply on your host page. There are several programs available that automatically pull in articles and social media posts based on keywords that may be associated with your campaign. Social listening is important to capture the essence of what people are saying about your brand. What people are saying about your brand is that much more important when they don’t know that you are listening. Social Listening is great at prevent a crisis during your current campaigns, informing future campaign ideas, and is in general powerful ammunition for all PR related processes.5. General EngagementEngaging with user’s comments, posts, and messages is by far the easiest marketing tactic to show that you care about your customer. Whether that involves liking their posts, retweets positive feedback, dropping a “Thank you!” here and there. Not only does this show your audience that you care, but that you are active in the digital space, constantly on the lookout to pickup on any information at all that can in some way help improve upon all aspects of your campaign, as well as your brand itself.By using these strategies, you’ll find that your audience will be happier and more informed than ever before. Of course, there is much more to community management than 5 easy tips; want more? 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