How to be an Effective Community Manager

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Since it has become painfully obvious for many established companies that marketing has definitely reached new heights in the digital world, it is imperative that they established their online presence as well.  This means requiring the assistance of community managers to create, cultivate and engage a community of potential customers through social media.

It is not only about creating a valuable shopping experience but allowing customers to form a relationship with the company and other customers as well.  This is very important to online marketing for any type of business, regardless of size and nature.  Indeed, social media has fully revolutionized marketing.  This has taken the word-by-mouth advertising into new levels.

What are Community Managers?

Community managers are basically the online faces of companies.  In truth, they also represent the company offline.  These managers need to be outstanding strategists, products managers, designers and marketers.  They should be very adept at community building.  They are basically responsible for strengthening online community of potential and existing consumers and clients.  If you are the community manager of your own company, how do you make sure that you are an effective one?  Here are some useful tips that you can take note of:

1.    Know your product.  In fact, be an expert of your own product.  There is nothing worse than a marketer who does not know what he is marketing.  People will ask you questions and you have to know the answers to each and every question that will be thrown at you.  People will have problems with your products, and you need to know how to address these problems.  You need to believe in your own product, so you will be able to market it more effectively.  Imagine a customer service representative talking to an irate customer who suddenly asks him, “Are you using your own service?”  Taken aback, the customer representative answered, “Uh. That’s private information, sir.”  You can very well imagine how the customer would likely react, “You probably don’t, do you?  Because you have a crappy service!”  You have to use your own product, so you will know all the benefits and drawbacks to using it.

2.    Be your consumers’ advocate.  There is nothing more irritating to a customer than a community manager who refuses to listen to his problem or complaint.  Yes, you love your product and your company, but do remember that it’s your responsibility to make sure that your customers love it too.  This is why you need to have a thorough understanding of your product and how it works.  You need to know potential problems that customers may experience with your product.  This way you will know how to address customers’ queries, problems and complaints.

3.    Improve your communication skills.  You do not have to have the finest vocabulary.  However, you need to learn how to engage potential customers into a conversation. You need to learn how to attract people and get them to notice you and talk to you.  You should know the tips and tricks on how to start and sustain an effective dialogue with potential clients or customers.  You need to understand your two basic roles.  First, you need to be able to attract consumers and help them out.  Second, you need to be able to help consumers interact and connect with one another easily and effectively.  In order to do these roles well, you need to be an effective communicator.

4.    Create a venue of communication.  Social presence is crucial to an effective communication especially if you are trying to communicate with people online.  You need to fully utilize all avenues.  You have to learn social media and how you can best use it to your advantage.  You can create a blog for instance and engage customers through it.  Of course, you need to learn how to get people to visit your blog.  Otherwise, it will be a useless venue.  You can also join various social platforms where you can meet people and engage them.  Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Plaxo are just a few of the social media sites that you should join for marketing purposes.

5.    You need to be an authority.  In order to do this, however, you need to have an authentic voice and you need to learn how to multitask.  It is difficult to sell a product when you do not have the authority to do so.  If you are going to sell a cook book, make sure that you have the credentials to write or sell the same.  If you are going to sell an SEO system, you have to make sure that you have the data to prove its effectiveness.  If you write the program, you need to be able to prove that it worked for you – and it worked very well!

6.    You need to learn how to prioritize and multitask.  These two things are crucial to your role as a community manager.  In order to be effective, you have to be very good at identifying tasks that need to be address first as opposed to tasks that could be completed at a later time.  You also need to learn how to multitask.  This involves learning how to write, how to create back links, how to do social media, how to do viral videos – and doing all these things effectively.  Sometimes, you may be required to do two or three tasks at the same time!

7.    Learn how to engage customers and build trust.  People will respond to you if they know they can trust you.  You have to listen to people.  You need to build relationships.  Be genuinely interested.

These are a few of the things that community managers need to take note of in order to become effective at their job.

Image Credit: Social Recruiting Summit

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