Lost in the Social Triangle?! Discover Our Top Tips for Building Customer Communities

In our last blog post we shared the argument for the re-branding of Social Media; recommending that organisations recognise the distinction between marketing/advertising online and a fully recognised social engagement team.

Social Media needs to get back to its roots. The best method for having a successful online presence is to ensure all disciplines are utilised and part of your overall success strategy.

This is an important distinction…

Social Media Community Management is a three-pronged approach – one in which no one part is more important than the other:

1. Engagement and support
2. Marketing and Advertising (Information sharing)
3. Reports, Data and sentiment analysis

Companies would do well to create their Social Media Community Management team utilising each of the three disciplines equally; allowing the department to work cross-functionally with outside departments including tech, product development, recruitment, advertising and others.

Below, we define each discipline so you can understand what to look for in your team; and how each section works together for ultimate success:

• Engagement and Support are a necessary and vital part of the puzzle. Once you publish new advertising and product marketing, your community engagement and support team will need to be on hand and well-informed as to how to keep the public conversation lively, positive and active. They will also be imperative should there be any consumer issues, and can quickly detect a potential crisis in the making.
• Digital Marketing and Online Advertising will always be considered part of the equation, however this is only one part of three – they all require care, attention and responsibility. Marketing and Advertising should work closely with Engagement and Support as they will know not just what campaigns had the highest engagement stats but also provide information on why they were successful and what needs improvement. What is it that your audience loved about the latest campaign? How can Marketing and Advertising give the community more of that?
• Reports, Analysis and Insights are the ideal way to present how successful each of your online campaigns are performing – both financially, and emotionally. You will easily be able to discover which projects resonate with your core audience, how successful your engagement and support teams are relating to your current audience, and how to improve your online reputation with new and existing consumers. Both the Engagement team and Marketing team will benefit from developing reports and analyses together so as to present a well-rounded proposal to everyone from Product Development, to your C-suite.

By taking this approach you will find your customer base to be more loyal, last longer, and your organisation will be so much better prepared to service your fans for life.

StrawberrySocial’s team of online community veterans are well-versed in successfully setting up and managing social community teams, as well as running insight reports and analysis.

Hit us up for more details on how we can bring this to your organisation!