Social media platforms have become powerful and invaluable channels for connecting individuals, sharing ideas, and fostering communities. To maintain engagement, trust, and safety within these online communities, platforms must run effective social media community management strategies. In this article, we will explore what social media community management entails, its significance, and best practices to keep in mind.
What is Social Media Community Management?
Social media community management involves strategically and proactively managing online communities across different platforms. It includes nurturing interactions, engaging with users, moderating content, and upholding community guidelines. Social community management aims to create a positive and vibrant digital space that encourages meaningful connections and enhances user experience.
Social media community managers monitor and moderate conversations, ensure compliance with community guidelines, and maintain a positive and inclusive environment.
Why do Brands Need Social Media Community Management?
Brands are recognizing the importance of building a well-established social media community at an accelerating rate. It goes beyond simply having a presence on social platforms; it's about creating a space where customers, fans, and followers can connect, engage, and become loyal advocates. By investing in community management and social media support, brands can establish themselves as trusted authorities with a loyal community.
- Attract a highly engaged audience
Through conversations, interactions, and shared experiences, brands can establish themselves as relatable and trustworthy entities, strengthening the bond with their customers. A recent study on consumer trends shows that 22% of online users actively participate in online communities.
- Emulate what successful brands do for themselves
90% of social media marketers say that active communities are critical to a successful marketing strategy and 47% sell directly to consumers on these platforms.
- Make it easy for consumers to slide into your DMs
Based on the same study above, around one in five Gen Z, Millennial, and Gen X online users use direct messaging to contact brands about their concerns.
- Let consumers find you more easily 55% of social media users use social media to search for people, content, brands, and products to buy online.
- Gather invaluable customer insight
By monitoring conversations, engagement patterns, and community discussions, brands gain valuable insights into customer preferences, pain points, and expectations. Understanding the needs and desires of the community allows brands to tailor their offerings, messaging, and customer experiences to serve their audience better.
Strategies and Best Practices for a Thriving Online Community
A social media community provides a dedicated space for customers to interact with a brand on a personal level. It’s the community manager’s responsibility to cultivate a community with a culture that fosters trust and relationships.
Here are some provent strategies and best practices for community management on social media employed by top global brands:
Careful Content Curation
At the heart of social media community management lies the creation and curation of the right content. While you want your audience to express themselves in your community fully, it’s also important to protect the experiences of everyone through careful curation. Tailor the content to match the platform and audience preferences and provide trust and safety solutions to safeguard your platform from unwanted content.
Engaging and Empowering Advocates
Passionate and dedicated individuals often become brand advocates. Social media community management involves identifying and nurturing these advocates, recognizing their contributions, and empowering them to positively amplify the brand's message and influencing their networks. Community managers can work closely with advocates, providing them exclusive content, early access to information, and opportunities to collaborate, fostering a symbiotic relationship.
Clear Community Guidelines
It is essential to establish clear and comprehensive community guidelines. These guidelines will outline the expected behavior, content standards, and rules within the community. It provides a framework for community members to understand what is acceptable and what is not. It may include rules on respectful communication, content relevance, avoiding spam, and addressing conflicts.
Crisis Management on the Ready
Even with proactive monitoring, crises can arise unexpectedly. Social media community managers are responsible for effectively managing such crises and maintaining brand resilience. They must have a well-defined crisis management plan in place to mitigate any reputational damage, retain trust in the community, and possibly turn challenging situations into opportunities for growth and improvement.
Detailed Data Analysis
Social media community management also involves analyzing data and extracting insights to inform strategies and decision-making. Community managers need to leverage analytics tools to measure engagement, track trends, and assess the impact of community initiatives. Valuable data, such as community demographics, preferences, and behaviors, can provide actionable insights that shape content strategies and overall community management approaches.
Building Safe Online Communities With Us
Social media communities are where consumers forge connections, nurture their passions, and safely express themselves—which is why safeguarding their experiences must come first. At TaskUs, we have been the go-to partner for the largest online communities for providing social media support, content moderation services, and ensuring the trust and safety of communities.
Dubbed by the Everest Group as the World’s Fastest Growing Business Process (Outsourcing) Service Provider in 2022 and a “Leader” and “Star Performer in Everest Group’s Trust and Safety Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2023, TaskUs, the trusted outsourcing partner, excels in social media community management, providing comprehensive solutions such as product reviews, comment moderation, and story/profile moderation. The team ensures content adherence to guidelines, safeguarding the client's brand from harmful or unsuitable material. Additionally, they skillfully tag and curate images, ensuring valuable marketing assets and linking them to the client's product page, empowering potential buyers with essential information for informed purchasing choices.
Harnessing the power of AI, we empower our moderators to accelerate results and enhance efficiency. Our fully scalable and customizable moderation tools leverage cutting-edge technology to accurately detect, flag, and analyze community forum content. By combining human expertise with advanced automation, we ensure a comprehensive approach to content moderation and community management that delivers optimal outcomes.
Our track record speaks for itself, consistently delivering exceptional results that exceed expectations. One of our client partners experienced an outstanding 109.0% productivity score in content flagging per hour, surpassing the targeted 100% goal.
