The concept of managing a community may seem simple.
But it’s the community management strategy that separates the ‘omg I love them!’ brand from all others.
If you really want to make an impact on your audience, it takes a little planning. Come with me to take your community management efforts to the next level.
Table of Contents
What is a community management strategy?
A community management strategy is an action plan to engage the people who interact with your brand. Your strategy should detail your community management goals, who your community is, where your community is most active, the metrics that determine success, and how you intend to strengthen relationships with customers, partners, and employees.
Think about some of your favorite brands and how they interact with their audience.
Personally, I like Duolingo’s approach to community management. It is genuine, consistent, and human. If you see the Duo owl in the comment section on TikTok, it’s to be expected. It’s almost the same belongs to there.
Plus, they get an A+ from me on content creation. Posts like this 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 doesn’t work for everyone. That’s because your community management strategy is unique to your brand. It all depends on who the audience is and what they want to do.
Jenny Sowyrda, manager of community strategy and operations at HubSpot, says you want to consider “the needs of your community members, the primary goals associated with your community, and the business goals of your community” when planning your strategy.
And sometimes, those needs and goals will change when you do start scaling.
But before we talk about growth, let’s start with six simple steps to help your community.
How to Create a Community Management Strategy
- Define your goals.
- Identify your audience.
- Select the correct channel.
- Set your goals.
- Post regularly and interact with your audience.
- Measure your results.
1. Define your goals.
The first step to developing a community management strategy (that actually works) is to understand what success is for your brand.
What do you want to achieve?
Your answer may include one or more of the following:
- Increase brand awareness
- Collect product feedback for product development
- Increase engagement
- Improve customer support
- Build a network of brand advocates
- Increase traffic to your website
- Increase customer satisfaction and retention
- Increase sales and conversions
Setting goals up front helps you lay the foundation for your entire strategy. Every decision you make from now on – such as choosing a platform and type of content – will go back to this step.
2. Identify your audience.
Once you have defined your main goal, the next thing to do is to identify and understand your audience.
That means collecting data about your current and target customers, including:
- Demographics: Who is it (age, gender, profession, etc.)?
- Psychographics: What are their values, attitudes, and lifestyle?
- behavior: How do you interact with brands and content online? What social media platforms do you use?
- Needs and challenges: What are you looking for from being part of a community? What challenges do you hope to overcome?
To gather this intel, I recommend starting with market research, social media analytics, and customer surveys.
Taking the time to understand your target audience will help you refine your communication strategy and tailor your activities to their needs and interests.
3. Select the correct channel.
Next, choose the platform where your community is most active. This could include social media, forums like Reddit, Slack channels, or even offline meetings.
When choosing the best platform for your target community, consider the following factors:
- Audience preferences: Make sure the platform matches the way your audience prefers to communicate. For example, I can choose to focus my energy on TikTok if I have a young target audience or LinkedIn if I’m targeting a B2B crowd.
- Purpose and type of interaction: Remember that goal we talked about earlier? They have a big role to play here, and so does the kind of interaction they want from the audience. For example, Instagram is great for real-time engagement.
- Level of control: Find out how much control you want on your user experience. For example, you have more control if you host the community on your own website than on a third-party platform.
- Platform tools and features. Consider community management offers for each option. For example, if you hope to engage your audience through quizzes and polls, choose channels that support this.
A big part of a successful community management strategy is being in the right place at the right time.
4. Set your goals.
Your target will naturally flow from your primary goal.
For example: If the main goal is to increase engagement, the target sample can be increase the average number of comments per social media post by 15% in the next three months.
Or, if the goal is to gather feedback to improve the product, potential targets can be collect and respond to at least 100 customer feedback submissions per month.
My top tip? Set realistic goals. Here’s how:
- Consider the industry benchmark: Look at similar communities from other brands in your industry and set a baseline based on past average performance.
- Run your own experiment: Design some quick experiments to determine your average metrics (eg, brand mentions, engagement), and use those numbers as a benchmark.
- Start small: Cultivating a thriving community takes time and consistent effort. Start with small goals and gradually increase as your community grows.
Max Pete, community engagement program manager at Square, also noted the importance of aligning goals with company resources.
“Realistically, you have to have bandwidth and capacity. If you don’t, you’re setting yourself up for failure,” Pete said.
“Consider what needs to be done ASAP and what will make the biggest impact — while also aligning with a realistic budget and timeline for you and your team.”
For example, if you’re a solopreneur, try to respond to comments within 48 hours instead of a more ambitious goal like 12 hours.
It’s good to aim high, but it’s also important to know what you can achieve with your current resources.
5. Post regularly and interact with your audience.
Consistent posts and active engagement are essential to keeping your community vibrant. Make sure you have a constant stream of content to keep you interested.
Depending on the goals and type of community, content can include:
- Articles or blog articles: To establish yourself as a thought leader.
- Polls and quizzes: To gather valuable insights.
- Discussion guide: To spark conversation.
- Contests and prizes: To encourage/reward member participation.
Regular posts help maintain visibility in members’ feeds and keep your brand top of mind.
That said, life happens, and you can’t be online every minute. Don’t silence your community.
A content calendar, as shown in the video below, is a great way to plan.
And tools like HubSpot’s Marketing Hub let you schedule your posts in advance.
In addition to posting, remember to interact with your people. Like commenting and responding to questions or concerns.
Show them you appreciate their support. Next, you will be able to understand more about their needs, preferences, and challenges.
6. Measure your results.
Finally, it’s time to see if your hard work has paid off.
Take the time to evaluate your metrics. This will tell you if what you are doing is relevant to your audience. If not, you may need to change tactics.
Here are some tried and true ways to track your success:
My advice? Don’t forget about quantitative data. Numbers don’t always capture the magic of a thriving community. Also, building a community takes time. Be patient, and focus on the long game.
Create, Connect, Engage
You now have the ingredients to start a community that your customers, partners, and supporters want to be a part of. When you combine everything into a cohesive strategy, that’s when magic really happens.