Managing a successful social media community goes beyond posting outstanding content. By being responsive to your community, you can elevate your brand’s Facebook and Twitter presence to the next level.

Shows your brand is listening to customer’s needs

Customers will use your social media accounts to ask questions or voice complaints, but a responsive community management strategy adds value by addressing the needs of all customers—not just those who use your page as a customer service platform.

If you post a photo of your product and a Facebook fan laments she loved growing up with your product but hasn’t seen it in the part of the country where she lives, jump in and tell her how she can get it. Does your client have a store locator they can use? Is there a place online that sells your wares? Active listening creates goodwill with customers and transforms your social media accounts into a resource for the community.

Strengthens connections to the brand

If you only talk to your customers when they have a problem, you’re missing an opportunity to create positive conversation around the brand. Tap into the customers’ emotional connections to the brand by asking them questions about their relationship with it.

If someone sends out a tweet saying they can’t imagine an afternoon without the presence of your product, thank them and ask how they discovered it. Was it through family? Through friends? These stories help customers think about their connections to the brand. By conversing with customers, you humanize the product and connect with the customers in a way that is more authentic. 

Elicits customer insights

Prompting customers to talk about their experiences with the product helps you understand how they think. You can glean insights into how fans view your product and interact with it. This is great information to feed back to the client. It’s also a great way to find ideas for future content for the page—you know the posts will be of interest to your community since they’re already talking about the topics!

Increases visibility of your content

When you post content on Facebook, only a small percentage of your fans actually see it in their news feeds. However, when fans begin to interact with your content (by sharing, liking, commenting, clicking or tagging themselves), Facebook publishes the posts in more news feeds. By jumping into the comments section and tagging fans in your responses, you create a reason for them to come back and continue to respond—spreading the content’s reach and increasing the engagement rate even more.

Engaging with your Facebook community sends the message to your customers that they are a valuable part of the brand. In such a crowded online community, your brand’s voice will be heard above others because your followers know that you’re starting a conversation and are eager to hear what they have to say.