Social MediaTop 15 Rules for Community Managers

Serge SergiouDigital Marketing ProfessionalJanuary 2013.

eMail: s.sergiou@sky.com

Getting Started

Community Management online isn’t an exact science. - But by following some specific rules and in most cases a good dose of common sense, you should help prevent your community management backfiring and you will grow your community.

The Top 15 Rules

I have established 15 top rules to always keep in mind and get familiar with as a community manager. Absorb the rules, but know also when to adapt them. Following them will help you to interact, communicate efficiently and build an engaged audience

The Top 15 Rules

1. Tell the community when you’re available. State when you are present, i.e. between our normal working hours of Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm.

2. Be clear on who you are and what the community can expect from you. You are the voice of the voice of the social media site you are managing. But if your audience asks questions outside your remit, please refer them to the appropriate channel.

3. Be transparent and honest to the community. People expect you to be, and will disregard brands that are not doing so. Don’t overdo things, make it feel natural.

4. Acknowledge when you’re wrong. The community will appreciate your humility and your integrity and give you credit for this. That said, don’t apologise when not needed.

5. Reply to comments within half a day. People will expect you to answer instantly. If you need internal investigation, acknowledge the question first, to show reactivity.

The Top 15 Rules

6. Share 2-3 times a week on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. Although frequency can increase during campaigns, posting 2-3 times a week is enough. Keep the pace even when fewer articles are published.

7. You can share more often on Twitter. Twitter is an exception; followers tolerate receiving more frequent updates, but avoid posting many times in a row and space the tweeting.

8. Always mention your interlocutor by his/her name or username. This will make your intervention feel more personal, but also ensure he/she gets notified.

9. Keep your content fresh. You can always share other followers or fans content that is engaging for your audience, to make sure your community remains interested and interacts.

10. Plan ahead, using a content calendar. It will help you to spread your communications throughout time and to maintain a certain level of quality

The Top 15 Rules

11. Keep posts as short as possible. Try to stick to the length of a tweet as much as possible on Facebook or LinkedIn, prefer one liners on Twitter. On Google+, it is acceptable to share longer posts (up to two paragraphs).

12. Speak with the community, not at them. Avoid one-way communication. Congratulate or thank people, ask questions, by addressing directly one person or using polls on Facebook/LinkedIn. Show the community that you care.

13. Focus on quality when sharing content. Richer content such as videos, photos, links to articles or blog posts will create more interest and more reactions.

14. Keep an eye on analytics to optimise your communication. Unlike sentiment and other branding shift metrics, engagement is easy to measure quantitatively and qualitatively. This will help you to optimise your posting strategy.

15. Empower your advocates. You will notice after a while who your most engaged fans are. Take the opportunity to create a relationship with them; you will appear more human.