Building a Community Management Strategy: How To

Building a Community Management Strategy: How To

In my previous post, I discussed several types of Community Management. However, this article I will focus on one strategy.

External engagement strategy- It has not been defined, but that is what I am going to do.

1. Choose a social media channel.

Before you or your team can proceed with a strategy, choose the platform where you will manage your community.

Perhaps your target audience might be Instagram, meaning it is a broad target audience. Maybe you want to manage your community on LinkedIn – then the professional crowd will be the focus. Meanwhile, Snapchat is primarily used by a younger audience – if that is your target audience then plan to manage your community there.

Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube are social media platforms which well-established and should be considered as places to launch a community.

Again, it all depends on where your target audience is.

2. Identify your audience.

So, you have completed choosing your social media platform, congratulations! Now it is time to focus on identifying which your audience.

This will help you craft content- videos, pop-ups, articles- that the audience typically gravitates towards. With this information you can determine many things, like what brands they like or what brands they engage with(akin to yours).

The result of the research is carefully customizing content that your audience will gravitate towards and ultimately consume. Of course – this is on specific platform.

3. Ask your audience what content they want to see

Great, you have identified your audience. Take time to ask them what content is appealing, interesting, engaging and last but not least relevant.

Needless to say, this will enable you to reach the intended audience, and more importantly, avoid wasting time and effort.

The audience will know you’re truly invested in them when you ask for feedback regarding content. Acknowledging what their opinions and input will further solidify trust in them.

Ultimately, your brand loyalty will be enhanced by any efforts made to reach out and involve customers in the content creation process.

4. How will your team determine success?

This will take a meeting or two to dwindle down what success means. Frankly, it what matters to your Co. that determines success.

Below are some key indicators of success as it relates to the brand and content.

• Traffic directed to the website
• Has there been a boost to sales and conversions
• Customer satisfaction and retention – has that increased?
• Has traffic to your site increased?
• Increase in brand awareness
• Content shared or liked by followers
• Overall engagement(ex: comments, messages, hashtags, mentions, shares, likes)
• Amount of content shared
• Increase in followers or audience members

5. Set goals

Businesses, small or large, need to set goals that in order to keep workers accountable. That said, stakeholders need to ensure that the business is meeting certain objectives. For example, are we really increasing traffic to the site, or is it remaining stagnant?

Perhaps you have set goals in school, at home, or on team- the concept is the same but more geared towards business. If your team is comfortable, they should set-up a meeting to discuss what goals should be. Use the acronym SMART, meaning specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.

Suppose after your meeting, you decide to set a goal to increase traffic to the site by 25% in six months. Of course, have you used SMART goals to determine it is doable. Now is the time to set up Google Analytics to track the traffic to the site over that period. Viola!

As you continue to talk to colleagues in the industry or within the company, some might urge you to reevaluate goal. It’s okay to revisit goals that been set and tweak them as needed.

Post regularly and engage with customers

Posting frequently is a way to succeed on social media – There’s no way around it whatsoever. Figure out a posting cadence that makes sense and can be maintained by your team. Stick to the posting schedule because ultimately customers will be expecting content on specific days and times.

Whenever a customer has something positive to say about your brand, products, or service, “like” there comments. It shows you are engaged and paying attention to what customers have to say. Likewise, follow-up regarding constructive criticism/negative comments.

Perhaps there might be misunderstanding about how a product works, or the customer was just frustrated. Ultimately, ignoring negative comments is not beneficial(goes without saying). Take charge of the situation, own the mistake if need be or push back if comment is out of line.

To standout from other brands, avoid using robotic responses to queries or comments. Rather, go the extra mile to answer each person authentically. Customers will appreciate your effort and this will lead to a stronger connection with community at large.

The benefits of authentic voice are creating a unique brand, that people feel a connection to, and is trustworthy.

6. Measure your results

How is your strategy working? Well, you can only find out one way, by measuring the results. No doubt quantitative data is important, however, it is not the whole picture. So gather the data, for example, we drove 25% more traffic to the site over 6 month period.

Then juxtapose it against a survey of people who are aware of your site, products, or services. Also, see whether conversations, clicks, sales have increased in that time frame. Qualitative data combine with quantitative date will provide the full picture.

It is important to note that results from social media efforts are typically not immediate. Here are some additional ways to measure results.

Analytics Tools: Google Analytics is probably the most popular analytics tool available. If the platform you launched the strategy on does not have analytics feature, use this instead. Even if analytics are already built in, use Google Analytics (GA) as an alternate tool to confirm or validate the data.

Other analytics tools are HubSpot and Social Sprout, integrate them into original platform where the community strategy was launched. They can provide invaluable analysis which can help propel the business forward.

Platform Analytics: Most social media platforms have a way to measure analytics(few exceptions). So, use the built feature to see how community strategy is working on the platform it was launched on.

The process of building a Community Management Strategy is challenging. However, it can be accomplished by external engagement strategy. First, choose the social media platform where the community management strategy will be launched. Then, identify your target audience. It might be a broad audience of social media platform, like Facebook. Take time to figure out what content they want to see. Afterward, determine how you will measure success, for example, via traffic driven to the site. Set goals. Then commit to posting regularly so that customers know when to expect new content. Finally, measure results of your effort. This can be accomplished via a built in analytics tool or one that has integrated such as Google Analytics.