What does a community manager do and why do you need one?

Have you ever wondered what a Community Manager does? A Community Manager is more than just the person who posts content on social media. Facebook , Twitter, Instagram or any other social network that your company uses.

Therefore, we will now tell you what they are. Community Manager functionsWhy is their participation important in the company And we'll also tell you why you need one in your business.

And who can be?

You might be surprised to learn that, contrary to popular belief, being a Community Manager, or someone in charge of managing social media, is a very complex profession that requires different skills and competencies.

Currently, the profession is in high demand as companies realize they need someone solely responsible for managing their social media, since most internet traffic is now coming through this medium.

Today, there are many ways to acquire the skills every good Community Manager needs: whether you learn them on your own, entirely through experience. In fact, if you're a whiz at managing your personal social media, you might already have some experience, although it's not advisable to launch yourself as a Community Manager with only the knowledge of managing your personal accounts.

To hone your skills, it is highly recommended that you train by taking courses on the subject; in fact, online you will find a wide variety of websites dedicated to this particular topic that will give you certifications and all the knowledge you need to efficiently perform your role as Community Manager within your company.

To be a community manager, you need to be sufficiently prepared.

The profile of a community manager

First and foremost, one of the requirements to be a professional Community Manager is to demonstrate a passion for social media. Furthermore, it's important to have good empathy and develop the ability to... creativity and the witas well as the ability to establish relationships through internet.

In addition to the above, an experienced Community Manager will have the following capabilities:

• ‍Community management.
• Crisis management.
• Customer Support.
• Copy writing.
• Storytelling.
• Knowledge of Facebook Ads.

Personal brand

When starting a resume as a Community Manager, you'll need more than just extensive knowledge of the tools we've already mentioned. It's crucial to gain experience managing social media on a daily basis to build your own brand. personal brand.

Without a doubt, the best recommendation is, initially, work on yourself y manage your personal brand.

Create your own social media page, separate from your personal account, to build a community and generate content for it. This way, you'll gain experience managing social media; in fact, creating and managing a successful personal brand is an ideal ally when testing your skills. resume.

However, manage your personal brand as professionally as possible and apply the same knowledge you would use for a business account.

You can take your first steps as a community manager by creating your personal brand.

First steps

First things first. To get started as a Community Manager, you need to create the account you'll be working on (if you don't already have one). You'll need to choose a username and fill out a description.

In your description, be direct and clear about your brand. It's important to accompany your content with a visual element, such as an image or video. Therefore, you'll need to consider the publishing guidelines of each social media platform to adapt your visual content, as each one uses different formats.

social media platforms‍

Currently there are various social media platforms, but companies focus on the main ones or those that are most popular according to their audience, and therefore we are going to name some of them with their main characteristics.

Twitter: It is the second largest social network in the world, it allows you to make posts of text, image, video and polls, you can use geolocation, hashtags and place #TrendingTopics.

Facebook: It is the most used and largest social network in the world, where you can post text, images, stories and video, you have the opportunity to have reactions, it allows geolocation and what attracts the attention of companies is the use of ads.

YouTube: It is the second most used search engine in the world (after Google), one of its advantages is that it filters its content by categories, allows subscriptions to its channels and for interaction it offers likes, comments and shares.

Instagram: Instagram is a social network based on photography and video. It allows posting in photo or video format, the use of hashtags, geolocation, and, like Facebook, you can create paid exposure campaigns.

LinkedIn: It's a professional and business network; in other words, it's a more formal and serious social network. If you want to build a business network, this is the right social network for you. It allows interaction through comments, likes, and mentions.

#Hashtags‍‍

What do hashtags mean? The use of this term originated on Twitter, but was adapted by Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram, so today these hashtags are present on all social networks.

They are used to create and focus conversation topics, In other words, when you click on a hashtag link, you'll see all the posts using that same hashtag. That's why it's important that when you create a hashtag, it should be concise, short, and above all, use neutral language so that many people from different places can participate in the conversation. Hashtags are created all day long, and these trends on Twitter and Instagram can be tracked through hashtags.

Using hashtags can be very helpful for grouping topics.

content creation

Can the same content be used in all the social platformsNo, because it's important to mention that each social network It has certain characteristics that differentiate them.

The above must be kept in mind when creating content, since each platform requires different formats and sizes for uploading multimedia content.

You may have thought at some point that certain content is good for TwitterBut upon closer analysis, it ultimately adheres more closely to the format of an Instagram post.

It is also important to have a thorough understanding of the variety of content you can publish on the different social media platforms you will be working with: alongside traditional posts of photos and videosA wide variety of networks already allow live video streaming and premieres (such as Facebook y Youtube), videos shared in groups, photo filters (Instagram) or the opportunity to monetize your videos (if you're looking for that option), and even generate business networks with companies or people dedicated to the business, as in the case of LinkedInYou can even monetize that content and start generating income through your content.

It is also important to consider engagement, that is, the bond you want to create with the audience or community you are communicating with.

To achieve this, your content must pique the audience's curiosity with your posts. Aim to generate followers so they consume your brand's content, contributing something of interest to the community.

Content creation This is only one part of the Community Manager's job, as it's also important to mention that they will be responsible for answering community questions, so they must also have excellent spelling and extensive knowledge about the brand or company so that the answers are concrete and concise.

Social media performance and statistics

Do you know how you're performing on social media? You'll be happy to know that social media analytics exist.

Analyzing this data is the best way to determine if you're achieving your digital marketing goals, or if it's time to change your strategy. Below, we'll outline the social media statistics that every community manager should know how to read.

Each of your social media accounts will include its own metrics by default, and it is necessary for the person in charge of managing social media to know which ones are the most important in order to evaluate strategies.

Facebook insights

Facebook statistics are known as Facebook Insights, which you can find in the top bar of the fan page, it is important to know that to see these metrics you must be an administrator of the page.

This data is based on metrics related to each of your posts.

The main statistics to pay attention to in Facebook Insights are:

• Reach: which will indicate how many people have seen your post.
• Comments: which will show how many comments your post has received.
• likes: Here you can see the interaction of reactions that your post has.
• Clicks: Here you will see the number of times users have interacted with your posts, excluding likes and shares.
• shares: It will show the number of times your post has been shared.

Facebook Insights will help you see how your fan page is performing

Twitter Analytics

Twitter also has a native option to view its metrics called Twitter Analytics. In it you have the option to check information about the account's performance over the last 28 days.

One of the most interesting pieces of data you can find here is the number and impressions of each tweet. This indicates the effective reach of each post. Twitter also offers individual statistics for each post; to access this option, simply click the analytics icon available on each post.

The most important metrics you can view in Twitter Analytics are:

• Retweets: which will indicate how many times the post has been shared.
• Favorites: Here you will see the number of times a tweet has been marked as a favorite.
• Answers: Here you'll see how many replies your posts have received.

With Twitter Analytics you can review the performance of your tweets

LinkedIn

On this social network you will find one of the most relevant metrics, since being a social network dedicated to the professional and business world, you will have access to know the performance of individual accounts, for this you just have to consult the option "Who has viewed your profile" in the profile tab within the same site.

Key LinkedIn metrics for individual profiles:

• Profile views: Here you can see the number of times people have viewed your profile during the last 90 days.
• Actions taken: Here you can see the number of times you have generated interaction (comments, recommendations, likes and times you have added contacts).
• Information about who visited your profile: This section tells you how many people have viewed your profile, but it will detail the job positions they hold.

As you can see, the Community Manager can be an important part of the company, since they don't just focus on uploading brand-related content or sharing memes that make the audience laugh. The Community Manager's job goes far beyond that, as they are responsible for your brand, expressing its values, and attending to your customers, offering the customer service that is so sought after on social media today. Furthermore, if you are looking to offer an even more specialized Community Manager service, you should know that you can seek training in advertising to provide a more comprehensive service for your company.

Now that you know the importance of a Community Manager, you'll realize why you need one in your company. Remember, a social media professional is someone who does more than just share images on Facebook.

This article was originally published in: Aloha