Your brand’s heroes: Community managers and all they do to ensure your success

Community managers have become popular in recent years due to the increase in the online presence of businesses. That’s why many companies want to hire them to be in charge of their accounts.

However, if you have a business or don’t know a lot about the topic, it can be hard to understand what is a community manager and what do they do. Because of this, here we’ll explain this and other important things that you should know. This way you will be ready to hire a CM for your business.

What is a Community Manager?

A CM is someone that manages and takes care of the digital communities of a brand or product through social media.

Their main job is to plan content for the different digital platforms that exist.

Depending on the brand, community managers must often post on their social media accounts.

They must also keep in touch with their followers.

What’s more, they must also create and group a community, be active, and interact with them.

Who can be a Community Manager?

In short, a community manager can be anyone who likes to use social media.

However, we suggest hiring someone with a career related to this job.

For example, a journalist, a communicator, or a marketing and advertising expert.

When looking for a CM, you must take into account certain skills that are vital in this profession. Some of these features are:

• Talkative. This professional must know how to talk with their followers. Also, they must be at the forefront of the latest conversation trends on social media. This way they will be able to let users know about them.

• Passionate. We could also say that the CM must have a passion for their work. Working with social media can be hard and tedious. That’s why the CM must love what they do to meet their digital goals.

• Curious. They must have a desire to learn and know more. This is a vital quality to have since it’s necessary to represent a brand in the 2.0 world.

• Creative. The CM must be very creative to send messages and ideas differently.

• Critical. Even if there are different information trends, not all information is true. Because of this, the CM must be critical when making publications to avoid future problems.

• Flexible. To be able to solve problems in the best way, effectively and creatively, one must be flexible and open-minded. Only in this way will the company and the CM seek alternatives to difficulties.

The knowledge they should have

Here is a list of some of the types of knowledge that a CM must have:

• Strategy design.
• Community management.
• Evaluation and management of processes and projects.
• Crisis management.
• Customer Support.
• Tools 2.0
• Copywriting
• Web Analytics.

What does a CM do?

The main job of a community manager is to encourage a conversation between a brand and its followers.

That’s why they must use their personality alongside the culture of the company.

By doing this, the CM will be able to add value to the communication of a brand.

Thus, achieving a higher success rate.

Here’s a video explaining what its main tasks are:

Main tools of a Community Manager

1. Hootsuite. This tool is one of the most vital in this job. With it, the CM can manage the profiles of the main social media platforms. Besides, it allows them to schedule posts, monitor a keyword or a hashtag, creates work teams with different users, among other actions.

Its only drawback is that it doesn’t work with Facebook.

Because of this, the posts of a fan page cannot be scheduled.

Here, the CM schedules directly on Facebook. Besides, Facebook Business is a vital tool to manage different Facebook advertising accounts.

1. Blogsterapp. CM uses this tool to optimize time. With this app, the CM won’t have to worry about spending hours each week scheduling thousands of tweets on Hootsuite. This tool will schedule the content of the blog automatically. Thus, publishing on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or LinkedIn, or where the client needs it.

Besides, different tweets can be established for the same entry.

The Twitter account will always be active, the followers will increase and the visits to the blog will increase.

Its only drawback is that it only has a 15-day free trial.

1. Tweet Binder. If the CM manages the social media accounts of an event, this would be the ideal tool to monitor its hashtags. With it, they will know how many tweets have been published, what has been the scope, the impact, who are the most active users, the most influential, among other data.
2. Google Analytics. It allows knowing the profile of those who visit the client’s website. For example, how much traffic the accounts generate and if this traffic translates into conversions.
3. Easypromos. This is the perfect tool to manage contests on Facebook or Twitter.

Other useful tools

Cool Tabs. 

Within this platform, there are endless applications to customize a fan page.

Out of all of them, one stands out that allows us to create giveaways on Instagram.

1. Twitteraudit. This tool lets the CM know how many fake followers there are on a Twitter account.
2. TrendsMaps. This makes it easy to know in real-time what is happening in a city, what are the most popular hashtags and what are the trends on Twitter.
3. Metricool. It serves as a complete tool for scheduling Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn while creating reports quickly.
4. Canva. If the CM team does not have a designer or knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign, the CM can try this tool. This application allows us to create our own and professional posts in a simple and intuitive way.
5. Bit.ly. this is one of the most striking link shorteners. One of its qualities is that it is not necessary to register to use it, but if you create an account it offers you statistics of the shortened links and allows you to customize the URL. Another shortener that can also be recommended is Google’s goo.gl.
6. Piliapp. This app provides the CM icons for Facebook and Twitter. With Piliapp they can make posts or tweets more fun.

Xovi Suite.

It is an SEO application widely used by those responsible for an online community.

Among its tools, Social Signals stands out, which gives you a quick and complete view of the effect of a link on the main social media platforms.

Design tools

Pixelmator Pro. 

They call it the sibling of Mac Pixelmator. However, Pixelmator Pro is a more advanced photo editor, with artificial intelligence.

It also competes with Adobe suite and specifically with Photoshop. Besides, it is compatible with Photoshop image formats so you can work with these designs.

PhotoScape.

This is a free program that allows you to modify images to make them look more attractive or different.

It has different functions such as:

• A viewer to have all the images in one folder.

• An image editor and a batch editor.

• Screenshot.

• Creation of animated gifs.

• Filters and frames.

• More than 100 templates for our projects.

• Dialog balloons and geometric figures.

1. ColorZilla. This is a free extension for Chrome and Firefox, which is very useful to know the exact color used by a website. It should never be missing. Besides, it is very easy to use and its main option is “Pick Color from Page”. The way this works is by clicking on the area that the CM wants. After this, a bar will show up with the exact color of that area. Its format is interpreted as a “dropper” that, placed on any selection on a website, offers the CM all the information necessary to make a design.
2. PowToon. This is an editor with which the person in charge of an online community will be able to create “cartoon” style animation videos. The CM can then create a story from a basic template to a more complex one. All of this will depend on the topic and the client’s business sector. Its free version is worth it because it is very complete.

Content curation and coolhunting

1. Content curation. This is a strategy that consists of the analysis, tracking, and collection of information on a certain topic, sector, or field.
2. CoolHunting. This is an innovative discipline to detect how the mix of certain social changes can lead to new needs for consumers.

Important aspects of managing social media

• Strengthen communities

This may be a constant work effort, as it involves responding to the messages and comments of each user. The ideal is to be in constant interaction with the public. This way the public will feel like the brand is aware of them and that they seek their closeness.

• Active listening and monitoring

This point has a lot to do with the previous one. If the account has constant interaction and movement, it will probably grow. For this reason, the CM must monitor its activity. The results are seen at least after three months, but with constant reviews, it’s possible to analyze and observe what are the weaknesses and strengths of every step taken.

• Measurement and reporting

At this point, the CM can measure the interaction of the public with each publication and analyze if there is receptivity or rejection of their actions. The CM’s report with the company is stipulated in their contract. In general, monthly meetings should be held where a report of their work is delivered, this being the endorsement of the work carried out.

• Deep knowledge of social media

Today there are different specialties for each social media platform, be it Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. In fact, multiple courses and workshops are offered in which the CM can be trained in-depth. Let’s not forget that each platform is handled differently since not all people use social media in the same way, the interaction is different, among other aspects.

Main online platforms and two important types of social media platforms

• Main virtual communities: Facebook and Instagram

Currently, most users have an account on Facebook and Instagram and the most important thing is that they have a basic idea of ​​how to use it.

This is because their only goal is to stay in touch and be entertained.

Therefore, the CM should initially have extensive knowledge of these two platforms.

• B2B social media platforms: LinkedIn

When we refer to B2B we mean Business-to-Business.

This term comes from a business that takes place between companies, such as relationships between companies and suppliers.

As we know, LinkedIn is a simple platform to use to create “your resume” and be able to find a job.

Besides, not only do people use it to be part of a company or project, as there are also profiles of large companies such as L’Oreal or Netflix, companies involved in very different areas.

However, the goal of both is to expand and engage with the public.

• Video and image social media platforms: Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat

In these platforms the image and its content reign. So, the CM can’t post nonsense photos. Innovation and reinventing oneself are factors that are gaining space in social media daily. Now, you understand more clearly what a community manager is, right?

On the other hand, we previously mentioned Instagram as one of the most popular platforms, but it is also one of the most visual.

The good use of an image or a good video in the case of YouTube and Snapchat can give you the desired attention from the public that you want so much. Thus, the CM must know what the best content format for the user is. Also, with a good strategy and market segmentation, a lot can be achieved.

Neurocopywriting and On-page SEO

• NeuroCopywriting. This is the persuasive writing present the digital medium oriented to a specific objective while taking into account neuromarketing and neuro-sales techniques. Remember that you are not selling to people, but their minds. A good text conveys the desired message, which will undoubtedly appeal to the target audience.
• On-page SEO. This refers to the optimizations you can make on your website. On-page SEO is everything we see outside of our website and how it is optimized is the result. As a result, the person in charge of an online community must do their job consistently, since everything that appears outside the page is their responsibility.

The main objectives of Community Managers

As we previously mentioned in the blog, the most important function or objective of any social media manager is to maintain close communication with their followers.

Besides, the CM seeks to spread the same message for many people, which is your community, to transmit the values ​​of a brand to all followers to also attract potential customers in the future.

In the following video we explain other objectives that community managers have:

10 Mistakes a Community Manager should avoid

• Focus on only our brand

A community manager shouldn’t only talk about the brand and its promotions.

This is because it can seem very forced on customers, and eventually, they will get bored.

The ideal is to have a balance of the contents that you plan for the same brand.

Many followers like current, informative, educational, or entertaining content over brand promotions.

So, to change this, we recommend sharing your own content and other brand’s content that complement yours.

• Forgetting to create a schedule or grid

Although this can be one of the most tedious tasks of any community manager, it is one of the most essential.

Without planning, you will not meet any of your stated objectives.

Depending on the brand and the content you want to offer, you can make daily, weekly or monthly plans.

This will also allow you to have well-planned tasks. Thus, managing your time well.

• Mix publications in different accounts (if you have many at the same time)

As a full-time community manager with many accounts under your charge, you might get confused between one account and another.

As a result, it’s very easy to mix information from different accounts.

That’s why we must pay attention so that it doesn’t happen.

Otherwise, a wrong post can create a lot of confusion among followers.

• They do not know the basic tools

This is the most common mistake among beginning CMs who are not yet familiar with the different social media tools to master these platforms like no other.

The best thing is to keep constantly investigating what the tools can be that will help you promote the brand you are working on and thus attract the attention of new followers.

Don’t be lost when it comes to working as this can take a lot longer.

• Be sensitive to negative comments

The sense of anonymity that social media offers to people gives way to harsh and even offensive comments or opinions.

What’s important as a CM is to not take these comments to heart, much less should you answer in the same way.

If the comments really upset you, take a break before answering but don’t let your temper take hold of you.

Remember that you’re a professional and representative of a brand. Because of this, you cannot give a bad image.

• Delete the comments of the followers

Censoring your followers can be the worst thing you can do for business advertising.

Even if they are doing bad publicity or badmouthing a service or product, you shouldn’t delete those comments.

Not everything in life is black and white, which is why some people agree with your products and others do not.

Ideally, respond with respect and ask if there is any way to help them if they have a complaint.

• Buy “followers”

It doesn’t matter if you have to start from scratch and create a community little by little.

Buying many followers is useless since they don’t help with the engagement of a brand.

In social media, followers aren’t the most important thing. What really matters is the percentage of interaction between them.

In short, there’s no use in having an account full of ghost followers.

• Do not take care of spelling errors

It can be very embarrassing for brands to publish posts with a lot of spellings error.

Because of this, as a CM, you must avoid this and if you need them, you can also use digital tools for this.

This way, you will avoid sinking the business and its reputation.

• A Community Manager is not a robot

You’re not just a brand, you’re a human being with a unique personality.

This is what people value the most on social media.

Clients and followers want authenticity from their managers.

This is because they don’t want to get default answers to their questions.

•  Send automatic DMs

This mistake is related in many ways to the previous one.

It used to be very popular and innovative to have automated direct responses but this isn’t the case anymore.

Users don’t longer like to get the same message as everyone else.

That’s why it’s better to work in a personal way to avoid giving a bad impression to clients.

This way, they won’t grow bored with the account and unfollow it.

Conclusion

As you may have seen, to be a good CM you have to have a set of competencies and skills. Besides, with the help of different tools and with a lot of practice you can become the best community manager over time.

If, on the contrary, what you need is to hire a CM, you can contact us. We are ready to assist you and find the best option for you.

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