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It cannot be overemphasized enough that community management is one of the pillars of gaining visibility and more reach. Why? In recent times, social media has significantly changed. Safe to say, it has grown beyond what it used to be. The way people engage and connect has changed, and it is essential you move with that change.
Back in the day, “likes” were the way to tell your posts or content was being seen, viewed, or recognized. Now, it is different. Something else has taken over: Community Management is the New Likes.
Did you know that a remarkable 77% of individuals using social media have recently become part of or participated in a community? Also, one of Aberdeen Group's reports revealed that companies (in this case, service-based business providers or brands) with engaged communities experience an increase of 47% in their customer satisfaction rate.
What is community Management?
Community management is an act of communicating with your audience and outreaching to a potential audience on social media platforms to develop a good and loyal community. It can also involve using offline and online opportunities to engage with your community members, foster meaningful interactions, resolve issues, offer exclusive sales and promotions and curate content to create value for the community.
The Difference between Post Reach and Engagement.
These are two concepts that are highly essential to the growth of a community, but they serve different purposes. Post reach is the number of people who have seen your post (video, article, infographics, images, podcasts, etc) in their news feed or saw your post at least once. Engagement is the rate at which your audience interacts and engages with your posts in the community.
While both are highly essential, having an active and well-managed community where constant engagement takes place should be a top priority. Post-reach tells the audience what you are about or what you have to offer, while engagement data tells you what keeps your audience hooked.
Strategies for Building And Nurturing An Engaged Community
Building and nurturing an engaged community on social media requires thoughtful planning and consistent engagement. Below are some strategies to consider:
Define Your Community: Clearly define your target audience and community's purpose. Understand their interests, requirements, and preferences so that you may customize your content and interaction techniques appropriately. In order to define your community, you first have to define your brand.
Create an Inviting Environment: Just as you would make your home inviting to create a good first or constant impression, do the same for your community. The more inviting it is, the more attractive it gets.
Generate Valuable Content: Next, have value in your community. The content you generate, write, record, or create should be valuable, engaging, and educational. This is the key to capturing your audience's interests and building a nurturing and engaged community. Consider our content generator for help on creating valuable content ideas.
Facilitate Meaningful Relationships: Create forums or subgroups based on various interests surrounding your brand, audience interests, etc. These groups could include hobbies, entertainment, industries, places, etc. Encourage members to network, cooperate, and learn from one another.
Stay Consistent and Responsive: Do not create the community and leave it idle. You have to stay consistent and responsive. Respond to emails, comments, and inquiries to show the members that you are also active and participating in their discussions or concerns.
Encourage and Reuse UGC: Encourage your members to provide their own materials perspective through user generated content. Highlight and showcase their contributions to make them feel valued and noticed. UGC can help develop trust and credibility, increase engagement, improve SEO, and raise conversion rates.
Metrics for Success:
To measure how well your community is doing, how involved the members are, the content put out, the performances, and more, there are several factors that need to be looked at. These factors serve as the metric for success. These include:
Average time spent: This indicator helps to figure out how long, on average, users stay active in the community during a single session.
Active daily, weekly, or monthly users: Shows how many individuals are getting involved with the community every day, every week, or every month.
The percentage of user-generated content: Calculates the percentage of content generated by users rather than the brand.
Retention rate: Determines the percentage of people who continue to interact with the community over time.
Engagement actions: These metrics assess the efficacy, appeal, and transparency of engagement activities.
Bottom line
Community engagement is highly essential in any marketing or growth-building strategy. It leads to loyal customers, and user retention, and gets people more involved. All this can lead to revenue generation. Take advantage of our different digital products that can help you professionally define your brand and engage your community.
Are you looking for a professional that can help you craft compelling content? Look no further than Ruth Sherrill Marketing Services. We are a marketing agency that specializes in helping brands like you to create profit and nurture an audience through shareable and informative content. You can explore our Content Generator with over 50 content ideas, Get in touch with us by following us on Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok.