What does a Community Manager do for your business?

When it comes to the world of social media there are so many very different jobs to be done, so many different content types and of course so many different networks and options for sharing content on them that it can at times be tricky to understand exactly what it is you need to for your business.

So, in today’s post, I decided I’d cover what a Community Manager does, a role that can encompass quite a lot more than you might expect and can really make a huge difference to your overall performance online.

I’m working on Social Media since 2009, in that time I’ve worked across just about all the networks managing the presence of a lot of very different brands, alongside managing a number of groups in an admin capacity for the purpose of business or charitable causes too.

In February 2021 I also undertook the Facebook Certified Community Manager‘s exam which on top of what I already knew from practice was a really worthwhile experience. Even where you have a lot of very different experiences there will be scenarios you will never come across or situations where you’ve got to think on your feet quickly and the related study for this course will I expect leave every person who sits the exam with an even more thorough understanding of what can be done.

So, as somebody well placed to advise on what a Community Manager can do these are just some of the benefits you can expect from securing the right Community Manager for your business;

Build an online community – starting with your ideal audience, a community can be built across one or multiple different channels using a combination of pages, profiles, or groups with the most popular options including Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, WhatApp, YouTube and Pinterest. Some of these channels such as Facebook or Linkedin offer your business the option to work with a page or a group, or indeed both. A Community Manager might work across all of the channels your business opts for, or in some cases, particularly where’s a large community, there might be specific Community Managers assigned to different networks.

Develop strategies and processes – your business should identify why they’re using a particular social media channel, from there you will have a clear end goal. It might simply be to drive traffic to your website to generate sales, it might be to manage customer service, the objective might be to focus on brand awareness or to conduct research. Your Community Manager will know what the objective is, they’ll know who your ideal client is and they’ll work towards creating the right strategy and processes to enable you to connect with that audience.

Implement your strategy – a Community Manager can implement a strategy or, where there’s a large team, manage the various roles within that team. They’ll be mindful of your brand strategy and where there are multiple members of a team, they’ll ensure that specifics such as style of content or brand voice are maintained at all times. Where there are multiple accounts or groups, they’ll also ensure that the style and message are clear across every channel, even where different content formats are in use. They may well work with third parties on your behalf also when it comes to implementation such Ads Managers, thus removing another job from your to-do list.

Work on content for your community – a Community Manager can create a plan for content. They might create the actual content or manage those that create blogs, graphics, or video on behalf of the brand. They might also have a plan in place for third-party or curated content, content that they feel is appropriate for your brand and that may be of interest to your audience.

Engage and moderate – depending on the platform in use a Community Manager will ensure that there are updates whether that’s updates to a page, training within a group, going live during an event, running polls, or indeed sharing whatever is agreed for the business. Depending on whether they’re running a WhatsApp group, an Instagram account or a Linkedin group, the options for engagement may vary – Instagram relies solely on links through the bio, WhatsApp moves quickly if you’ve got a number of people involved while over on Linkedin people might not be as open as they’d like given that it’s a more professional network. A Community Manager will know how to enagage with comments and moderate as needed, with some rules in place for the standards they will allow within the community.

Measure and analyse the success – success on social media isn’t all about the numbers. Yes, the numbers for traffic or sales matter and will always matter. However, often somebody might be overly concerned about the number of followers or likes on a page without actually thinking through who is in those numbers, if they’re not interested in your business and found themselves liking the page so they could participate in a giveaway they actually won’t help your brand at all. A Community Manager will know what to look for in determining the success of your business online whether that’s traffic to your website, enquiries through messages, comments on updates – and they can report back without you needing to learn how to use the social network’s analytical tools.

There’s a whole lot more that a Community Manager can do for your business but for every business, the requirements will vary so an overview should be more than enough to have you think whether this is an option you need to explore.

If you’d like to learn how a Community Manager can work for your business, pop an email to debbie@themarketingshop.ie and we can arrange a complimentary consultation for your business.