In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that successful social media advertising goes far beyond just posting clever copy, amazing videos, and shareable images. It now also involves networking and interacting with your audience, creating a community around your brand. This is known as community management.
Community management involves far more than just answering questions on social media platforms. Its aim is to draw together audiences based on a common or shared characteristic. By drawing together groups, it is then possible to build authentic relationships with all of your stakeholders, from customers and followers all the way through to employees and their families. It creates a sense of belonging and validity and, from a more cynical perspective, encourages people to share your content, thereby increasing your reach to like-minded potential customers.
Create a personality for your brand.
Every brand has a personality and a voice, and regularly interacting with your audience online will help to build that. Innocent is a great example. Their funny Twitter and Instagram posts always get responses, but they go beyond that by then continuing the interaction. The best part is that their replies are as witty as their original posts. Sainsbury’s is another exceptional example, combining tongue-in-cheek humour with genuine and credible customer service. This brings us to the next point.
Customers expect real-time responses.
Gone are the days when if you wanted to make a complaint, you sent a strongly worded letter. Nowadays, we have direct access to brands at our fingertips. And, because we can fire off a tweet or a private message, we expect an immediate response. Customers are increasingly demanding quick action and to be heard.
This has become more prevalent since COVID-19, with recent data from Intercom suggesting that customer service teams have seen a 51% spike in queries coming through social media channels.
Having a fast response time for social media queries provides its own rewards. Firstly, there will be an increased likelihood that your customers will remain loyal to your brand instead of bouncing over to a competitor. Secondly, it also shows your audience that you take customer service seriously. It also makes customers feel needed and valued, giving them the impression that they matter.
You have to give to receive
In a world of increasing chatter and internet noise, people are becoming more discerning about the accounts they follow, so it makes sense that you need to give to receive. Ask yourself the question, “Why would I follow an account that doesn’t interact with me?”. Engaging with your audience provides added value. Not engaging is akin to walking into a shop and being ignored by the store assistant. It’s an experience that will make many choose to go elsewhere.
Helps to build customer personas and target advertising
Interacting with your customer base also has the added benefit that you can get to know them, find out what they do and don’t like, what they’re more likely to purchase, and their buying patterns. This kind of information is invaluable for building customer personas and defining your social media audience. It can also save time and money in the long term as improved knowledge of your customer base can create the opportunity to be far more targeted in advertising spending.
Create a Community Management Plan
A community management plan should be an integral part of any marketing strategy and should include attainable goals and measures of success. It is also important that within any plan, there are details of how regularly each account will be posted and a set of responses for frequently asked questions.
As with any area of marketing, it’s always a good idea to speak to some experts before beginning or planning anything. Not Another Marketing Agency has bucketloads of experience in designing marketing and community management plans for clients of all shapes and sizes. If you’d like a chat, get in touch.
