7 reasons community management is priceless

Community management is a highly misunderstood and underrated role. We know from experience that community can and does work for brands. Yet, many brands continue to use social media as broadcast and advertising channels, which also has it’s benefits, but are missing the big opportunities community has to offer.

1. It saves you time, and time is money.

The goal of a community manager is to create a sense of community. To go from frontline interactions being the bulk of your work, and build it to a point where that’s no longer required, so you can do more strategic thinking. That means we create an environment for self-moderation, where users will step in to answer frequently asked questions or set the record straight on misinformation, meaning less time spent in the community. It also means a large amount of UGC (User Generated Content) is created by the community, decreasing the amount of time spent on content ideation and creation.

2. It’s priceless for protecting your reputation.

Once you’ve built a sense of community, you have an army of advocates at your fingertips. This is key for protecting your reputation. If an issue occurs, self-moderation will help quell your consumers’ fears. If you share a company update, your super fans will take note and help respond to queries from others. Positive experiences will be shared in the face of complainers. Trolls will be sent on their not-so-merry way by your consumers as they protect ‘their’ community. Risk: mitigated.

3. It drives sales.

Here’s few stats to show you how:

• Engaged customers represent a 23% premium in share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and relationship growth over average customers.
• 84% of brand advocates or influencers say they have received questions that buyers would never ask company representatives. People trust those they see as peers more than they do brands – if you have an army of advocates, those otherwise unasked questions can convert to sales.
• 83% of people hear about new products on social media before any other source. Comments are conversation have been long-suspected of increasing your ranking with the Facebook algorithm, the more conversation you create, the more likely you are to reach these people.
• After a brand and associated websites, the top 5 destinations for brand or product research are social media sites: 1. Facebook; 2. YouTube; 3. branded forums; 4. blogs & bloggers; and 5. Pinterest

4. It drives loyalty and advocacy.

These are well known as the tougher parts of the sales and marketing funnel to achieve. So once you’ve built a community and have advocates, they’ll help grow the community over time and share their positive experiences. How do we know this works?

• Two out of every three purchasing decisions are based on emotional factors – that means consumers need to feel connected to your brand or your community manager and fellow community members.
• 92% of consumers trust earned media more than any form of advertising. Do you need any greater reason to go out there and build community around your brand?

5. It can help achieve behavioural and social change.

You might think this is one purely for government and non-profits. Grass roots movements and social change experts have always worked with communities. Offline communities. The definition of community remains the same regardless of if it’s offline or online. Community has the power to change minds and lives. The likes of Beyond Blue, Movember, VicHealth and NSW Health all invest in social media community, it must be working for them. That is powerful. If it can do that, it can reach your audience and help you achieve myriad other business objectives.

6. It helps with customer retention.

Similarly to points 1 & 2 above, your community will provide an overwhelmingly positive environment for any new visitors to your social media communities. Even if they are irate, the scene is set by others and they are often calmed quite quickly by the rapid and multiple responses from the community of fellow consumers. This is immensely reassuring for someone who may have been considering dropping your product or service for another.

7. Quiip’s revenue is 100% from community.

A cheeky last point. We’ve been in the business of community for 7 years and have earnt the trust of the likes of Big W, Leo Burnett, Coca-Cola, Snooze, AMP Capital, ALG, Beyond Blue, Movember and many more. That’s a reasonable argument that community matters and works for brands.

The reason we are so passionate about online community, is because we’ve witnessed its power for delivering results. A successful community is built on relationships and sense of belonging; a skilled community manager is at the heart of delivering those two aspects.
What to know more about how an online community can help your business? Contact us today!