By Alana Chinn

The concept of managing communities may seem straightforward.

But a community management strategy is what separates the ‘omg I love them!’ brands from all the rest.

If you really want to make an impact on your audience, it’s going to require a little bit of planning. Come with me to take your community management efforts to the next level.

Table of Contents

• What is a community management strategy?
• How to Create a Community Management Strategy

Think about some of your favorite brands and how they interact with their audiences.

Personally, I love Duolingo’s approach to community management. It’s authentic, consistent, and human. When you see the Duo owl in the comments section on TikTok, it’s to be expected. It’s almost like they belong there.

Plus, they get an A+ from me on content creation. Posts like these are a big part of why my Spanish-learning streak is still alive. (I’m on day 580, btw.)

While this strategy works for Duolingo, it won’t work for everyone. That’s because your community management strategy is unique to your brand. It all depends on who your audience is and what you want to accomplish.

Jenny Sowyrda, manager of community strategy and operations at HubSpot, says you’ll want to take “the needs of your community members, the key goals associated with your community, and the business goals of your community” into consideration when designing your strategy.

And sometimes, those needs and goals will change as you begin to scale.

But before we talk about growth, let’s start with six simple steps to help you get your community up and running.

1. Define your objectives.

The first step to develop a community management strategy (that actually works) is understanding what success looks like for your brand.

What do you want to achieve?

Your answer may include one or more of the following:

• Increase brand awareness
• Gather product feedback for product development
• Increase engagement
• Enhance customer support
• Build a network of brand advocates
• Increase traffic to a website
• Increase customer satisfaction and retention
• Boost sales and conversions

Defining objectives upfront helps you lay the groundwork for your entire strategy. Every decision you make from this point on — such as choosing platforms and content types — will tie back to this step.

2. Identify your audience.

After you define your primary objectives, the next thing to do is identify and understand your audience.

That means gathering data on your current and target customers, including:

• Demographics: Who are they (age, gender, profession, etc.)?
• Psychographics: What are their values, attitudes, and lifestyles?
• Behaviors: How do they interact with brands and content online? What social media platforms do they use?
• Needs and challenges: What are they seeking to gain from being part of a community? What challenges are they hoping to overcome?

…read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron