If you’re a Facebook community manager, you’ve probably gotten the “Wow—you get paid to be on Facebook all day?” reaction from at least one person in your life—are we right? Yet you, like us, know that Facebook community management isn’t a walk in the park—and it’s more than posting a few status updates and responding to audience comments.
Facebook community management takes a lot of skills: writing, editing, customer service, some degree of tech savvy and a knack for conversation, among others. Think you need to take your community management to the next level? Try these tips, straight from the mouths of the amazing people I’m lucky to have on the V3 team. We pretty much live Facebook (not to mention all things digital), so we crowdsourced this question amongst our team and hope we can offer you some helpful perspective that you can apply to your own Facebook pages. Without further ado, meet some of our community managers and see what they have to say about their respective keys to success with Facebook community management.
Be Present
The most important aspect of being a successful community manager is to be present. No matter what anyone says, there’s no autopilot or set-it-and-forget-it mode. It’s also important to understand your audience. Know when they are online and how they use your online information. Are they looking for customer support, industry news, upcoming events/trends? It goes without saying, but use your analytics to determine what kinds of posts get the best reaction and when your optimal engagement times are. –Jen Bradshaw
Make It Personal
Even if you’re representing a brand or company, don’t forget to be personal. Every business, after all, is comprised of people—and that personality should be reflected on your Facebook page. Have fun. Make jokes. Be conversational and approachable. Ditch the corporate speak and post content that makes your audience take notice, helps them solve problems and keeps them informed and entertained. Your company has a personality and a story—and Facebook is an ideal platform on which to show your customers, fans and audience exactly who you are and why they should pay attention to you. –Katy Schamberger
Customer Service Is Key
If they’re upset, I try to empathize, remember a time when I had a customer service debacle and get in their shoes. I also try to remember that it’s hard to really understand tone in the written word. I may think a customer is being snippy when really it wasn’t their intention to come across that way at all. I always remember to realize that someone might just be having a bad day and their interaction with me might be the one thing that turns it all around. I never, ever forget that I’m dealing with a human being on the other side of this interaction. –Jenny Rapson
The Power of Listening
Over the last several years, I’ve spent a lot of time meeting new people and learning about how they interact and the one lesson I’ve learned over and over has been to listen. A good community manager listens to their community; to the individuals and the group as a whole. You have to be willing to listen to the voices of the individual while also keeping the entire community in mind. It’s important to remember that YOU are not the community, but rather the liaison between the brand and the community. –Amanda Henson
Stay Engaged
With so many available scheduling and automation tools, it’s sometimes hard to stay truly engaged on Facebook. These tools are handy and play a key role in getting content and information shared. Yet if you don’t keep up with the day-to-day activity, you’ll miss out on the opportunity to engage with fans and build your network. –Libby Hastert
Although these tips are specific to Facebook, most of them apply to any social network. After all, community management is called that for a reason—you’re managing and building a community, and that’s something that takes daily work and insight in order to succeed.
What else would you add to the list?
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Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
