From customer support to follower-exclusive sales, there is an array of ways that small businesses can use social media to grow. For businesses that use social media marketing for finding and connecting with customers online, community management is an essential activity.
What is community management on social media?
Community management touches all parts of the customer journey for businesses on social media—from brand awareness to returning customers. This makes it an important system to implement into your social media strategy.
Here are a few examples of what community management does for your business:
Gather feedback and ideas from your customers
Provide light troubleshooting
Increase brand awareness
Boost customer interactions, conversions, and sales.
Provide value to your customers beyond a product or service.
Another bonus of community management is the way it can help humanize your brand by making your followers feel heard and showing off your personality.
Community management best practices on social media
To help you build your own thriving community management strategy, we outline three ways your small business can practice (and get the most out of) social media community management.
3 ways small businesses can practice community management
Community management is an active practice you can start incorporating into the social media strategy for your business. Here are three ways to get started.
1. Customer support
Customer research on social media is a key part of the purchasing process. Welcome questions on your posts about your products, with a strong call to action at the end of your captions.
Ripl tip: Be proactive with customer support by answering FAQs in your social posts and on Stories!
GoPro goes above and beyond in this example to ensure their customer’s questions are answered to the best of their ability.
2. Be authentic
Authenticity has been a buzzword in social media over the last few years due to the fatigue of seeing perfectly curated Instagram feeds and unrealistic filters. Being authentic doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be consistent with your content's look and feel, but you should let your personality show in your content, captions, and communications.
Take a look at this example from Mrs. Meyer’s Instagram post showing one of their popular scents. Their response shows some personality and feels authentic to the brand.
3. Get involved with your community
Just because your community is online doesn’t mean you can’t actively engage with your customers. Get creative with how you interact with them by taking advantage of features on social media platforms.
Here are our favorite ways to get involved:
Follow loyal customers on social media
Like and comment on posts you’re tagged in
Share customer posts to your Stories
Stitch Reels and TikToks of customers using your product
In this example from iamkytoo, the brands that she tagged in her makeup look commented in support of her use of their products, and what she created using them.
Read next: The do’s and don’ts of community management
