In 2021, community management will be a buzzword. In Hub Spot’s Social Media Community Manager Krystal Wu’s opinion, community managers serve as a brand’s voice, tone, and the human element, enabling them to reach their target audience. Community managers work with your internal team to project your brand values online, nurture your customers, empower your brand, and transform the way you think about digital marketing or social media.
But before we discuss the benefits of hiring a community manager for your business, let’s first talk about the role and importance of an online community.
Online Communities: What Are They?
Online communities are becoming increasingly important for digital marketing, regardless of whether you’re a small business or an international brand.
Communities are the foundation of modern-day society, providing a safety net of support and knowledge. In challenging times, communities offer assistance, advice, and first-hand experience, forming strong bonds between people from all walks of life. When people come together with a common goal or interest, they become more powerful, and this group dynamic should not be undervalued! We tend to feel safer in a group dynamic because humans are social animals.
Online communities, such as Facebook groups, forums, and hashtags, allow people to communicate. Online communities may hold the key to your online success, whether it’s following a big brand on social media or connecting over a shared interest. With the help of online communities and your digital group, you can position your business as a leader in the industry by creating a place on the web that provides information, advice, support, tips, resolutions, and answers for your customers. The challenge in this digital microcosm is to convert users into customers.
Who will assume this new role within your team?
To have an authentic social voice for your brand, you have to pop online now and then. But, finding balance in social’s always-on world will help you become a better person and community manager!
It is your responsibility to nurture the community you have on social media if you have a following. Customers expect you to engage, respond, and react to them when they contact you. Engagement and accurate responses generate more loyalty than a generic presence ever could, and this is where a community manager comes in – fully immersing themselves in your business by personifying your brand’s tone of voice and values.
They will represent your business online and add a human element to your social media groups while implementing new ways to engage with your community. It can help by giving them a link to your brand without presenting them as corporate employees if you set them up with their own branded social media accounts (in addition to your company’s accounts). Social media marketing can be shaken up and made more creative and playful by paving the way for a more active and relatable approach.
Let’s see how bringing a community manager on board will benefit your organization.
The benefits of hiring a community manager
1.Manage and respond to online customer enquiries, questions, and complaints to save time and prevent negative customer reviews.
2.To help you customize your digital marketing strategy, get a window into the lives of your online audience.
3.Turn existing customers into brand loyalists.
4.Collaborations with influencers and other brands online are an exciting way to create value.
5.Your online customers will tell you what they think about your brand, products or services, and their honest opinions will help you improve.
6.Your customers should be able to relate to and communicate with an actual human being online.
By building and nurturing an online community, you’ll not only be able to save your business time but also make more money. In addition to building trust and credibility for your brand, online communities enable you to make more data-driven business decisions. In other words, instead of relying on pay-per-click ads to drive traffic to your product pages, you can answer industry-related questions, share tips and advice with your online community, and create an organic community around your brand and business.
Digital Marketing Will Be Transformed by Community Management
Since engagement has been a buzzword in digital marketing for the past few years, some brands haven’t quite mastered engagement optimization by investing the right amount of time, energy, and resources into being present in the moment. Responding to everyone online may be time-consuming, but you will build brand awareness and loyalty by nurturing your online communities.
Social Media: Adapt Your Strategy
Our daily lives have become increasingly reliant on social media. It’s where we catch up with friends, vent our frustrations, and share our experiences, tips, and advice. Social media is an invaluable tool for companies trying to connect with their customers by listening and monitoring their online behaviour. It is the most effective way of analyzing brand mentions and reinforcing brand loyalty, and rewarding customers.
Digital community management will foster online communities while providing insight, information, customer service, and creative content in real-time. Although a social media manager will schedule content to go live across various platforms at the best times, the role of a community manager is to be ready on the front line of social media to respond, reply, comment and share information at any moment.
With the rise of social media and mobile devices, it seems like community management should have a big impact on digital marketing. And that’s true!
Community management is an important part of any successful business strategy because it can make or break your brand. But how do you actually manage these communities?
That’s where our Digital Marketing Course comes in handy. We teach you everything from basic to advanced strategies for managing your own communities online, including Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, YouTube channels and more! If you want to learn more about this topic sign up today by clicking the button below!