In the modern world, social media is no joke. While teenagers are still incredibly active social media participants, it’s not an arena that everyone interacts on from big corporations to off-grid survivalists.

Everyone in the world, including people’s pets and favorite toys, have their own social media pages but, most importantly, the various platforms have come together into a new global public forum. It’s only natural that every influential organization would want a place there and an opportunity to gain the attention of the people.

But what do you do with that attention once you have it? Drawing, maintaining, and productively directing the attention of social media users is the purpose of your social media manager or management service. This role requires superb online social skills, a culturally sensitive sense of humor, the ability to create engaging content, and the savvy to direct all the positive attention they generate toward their company’s goals.

Whether you’re looking to boost sales, brand awareness, or just take the emotional temperature of the masses, here are 10 social media community management tips that will keep your audience happy, engaged, and interested in what you have to say.

1) Warm Up to a New Platform

When you start on a new social media platform, it can be tempting to go all-out to introduce yourself in order to stir up the interest and enthusiasm. However, the success stories of past organizations suggest that the better route is to ‘warm up’ a little first.

In social media, a blank page is generally considered a bad sign, so instead start by creating a few high quality, entertaining articles, videos, or other content pieces and perhaps generate a little idle conversation on your page before introducing the rest of the platform to your company or organization’s page. This will give your audience something to look at and a way to get to know you during their first look.

2) Create Interesting, Original Content

Okay, now that you’ve got the people’s attention, it’s time to put on your first big show. It doesn’t have to be flashy, fast-paced, or revolutionary, just enjoyable and informative so that when your audience checks back in after work or school, there’s something interesting and pleasing to check out on your page.

Ideally, you want your audience to learn something from your content and desire to learn more. This creates a positive and productive impulse to continue checking back in on your page for more interesting news, videos, or discussions.

3) Give People a Reason to Join Your Online Community

Many people think that social media success is all about the number of friends/fans/followers you have. While this is often a reflection of success, focusing your tactics single-mindedly on raising that number won’t actually create a happy, supportive, and growing social media community.

Instead, give your audience a good reason to join your community. The best examples of this strategy offer some kind of minor service or rewards for participating like a weekly social media coupon code, a fun app associated with your brand that can share through social media, or you could provide a more casual customer service avenue if that’s your style.

4) Google+ Influences Search Results

Among the admittedly vast selection of social media outlets, we were all surprised and a little bemused when the great Google’s platform didn’t immediately take over or really make that much of a splash at all. Of course, just because the kids didn’t pile on doesn’t exclude it from being part of the Google’s integrated software suite. Your activity and positive responses on Google+ do appear to have an influence on your page ranking in search results so don’t exclude this underrated social media platform when you’re making your multi-platform management strategy.

5) Inspire Responses and Conversations

Your social media audience has come to you to be entertained, informed, and possibly involved in your activities. However, you don’t have to supply one hundred percent of the content, just the inspiration. You want to be asking questions that audience members want to respond to. These responses will draw comments and ideally, the comments will turn into discussions creating a cascade of interesting content on your page from a few strategic and engaging prompts. It’s also important that you respond to questions and attempts to engage in conversation in return. Be a part of the community rather than above it and they will find it much easier to accept you as an influential voice.

6) Ask for and Share Personal Stories

Your social media platforms are not billboards, commercials, or even your YouTube channel. Social media is built for the public to meet and socialize so you’re in their territory and it’s a personal one. If you want a strong social media community, build it by making it about the audience members first and your brand second. A great way to build up both is to encourage members to share their personal stories about using or interacting with your brand. Ask about stories about using their favorite of your brand’s items or ask for community members to describe their experiences of a recent company event.

7) Spotlight and Reward Community Members

Another way to keep your community focused on and uplifting the members is to do community member spotlights. Here, you highlight, congratulate, and share something about one particular person from time to time. This is a wonderful experience for anyone when they are recognized and rewarded by a community and everyone feels as though they could have their chance as well. You can spotlight through contest winners, random selection, people with great stories to tell, or really anyone as long as it’s fair and entertaining.

8) Be Honest and Forthright

When it comes to managing a modern community online or otherwise, being genuine is always the best way to go. People are ready to accept that companies are run by real human beings and they appreciate being treated like normal people as well. While it’s important to stay professional, try speaking to your community as if they were a friend or peer. You can even turn bad situations around for your audience if you handle it correctly. If there are mean rumors, serious criticisms, or even just confusing news floating around, address the issues directly with your community and get clearance to explain a few things about how the company works if necessary.

9) Get Creative

There are a lot of tried-and-true strategies for social media community management, but most of the top community managers will tell you that surprise and creativity are two of the best ‘proven’ strategies you can implement. Try brainstorming with your team on a few truly creative, engaging, and interesting tactics. The more original it is, the more people will remember the tactic and may even request it again.

10) Share the Little Things

Finally, almost anyone paying attention to your company or organization social media presence probably has an interest in the industry and the inner workings of your company. You can build your relationship with your online community simply by sharing the ‘human interest’ side of your business like new hires, recent employee newborns, and even setbacks or tragedies. Not only will you receive an outpouring of empathic response, you will also successfully ‘humanize’ the organization by showing the human moments within.

For more social media community management tips and tricks, contact us today!