{"id":68,"date":"2016-03-18T15:27:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T15:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/?page_id=68"},"modified":"2019-06-20T17:18:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T17:18:46","slug":"community-management","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/community-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Community management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Community management<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Social media is about communities: people who are there to communicate\u00a0with other people who share their interests. For a brand, those people are often customers or service-users. Community management is the practise of creating and managing online spaces that enable\u00a0dialogue with, and between, members of that community.<\/p>\n<p>In the context of a university, that might mean a Facebook Group for students on a particular module, a hashtag for online discussion between a community of academics, or a LinkedIn\u00a0Group that helps students access university services.<\/p>\n<p>Organisations often want to use social media to promote, or \u2018shout about\u2019, things they\u2019re doing, but community management allows us to\u00a0interact with our audience\u00a0in ways that create and enhance brand affinity, and lead to tangible outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>How do you do it?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Work out what your community is comfortable with. Ask them how they&#8217;d prefer to connect and interact.<\/li>\n<li>Once you&#8217;ve settled on a platform, be clear what the purpose is for the community &#8211; edit the group description to reflect this, or write a blog post about the discussion topics.<\/li>\n<li>Keep an eye out for mentions that have a positive sentiment, such as \u2018I can\u2019t wait to go to @sheffhallamuni\u2019s open day\u2019, or comments that say \u2018this looks awesome\u2019. Interact with them, and start conversations.<\/li>\n<li>When you post something, think about the response you want to elicit from your followers. Try to make them stop, reflect and respond.<\/li>\n<li>Ask your fans and followers questions about themselves. Make your posts about them.<\/li>\n<li>Reply with something fun and shareable. They might like, share or reply, and then it becomes a conversation. Conversations build trust.<\/li>\n<li>Look at who your most engaged followers are, and build up a rapport with them. They\u2019re brand ambassadors.<\/li>\n<li>Have conversations online, without feeling the need to market products and services at your audience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Three tips:<\/strong> listen to your followers and learn about them, try to create advocates by having fun conversations, think about what responses you want to generate.<\/p>\n<p><em>Further reading: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.socialmediaexaminer.com\/social-media-community-management\/\">&#8216;<\/a><\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.socialmediaexaminer.com\/social-media-community-management\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>26 Tips for Managing a Social Media Community&#8217; <\/em><\/a><em>[Social Media Examiner], <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jaysondemers\/2015\/02\/12\/why-community-management-is-different-from-social-media-marketing\/#309ec20e4568\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8216;Why Community Management is Different From Social Media Marketing&#8217;<\/a> [Forbes.com], <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shopify.co.uk\/blog\/community-management\">&#8216;Why Community Management Matters for Your Business (and How to do it Right)<\/a> [Shopify.com]\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/\">Back to the guidelines main page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Community management Social media is about communities: people who are there to communicate\u00a0with other people who share their interests. For a brand, those people are often customers or service-users. Community management is the practise of creating and managing online spaces that enable\u00a0dialogue with, and between, members of that community. In the context of a university, that might mean a Facebook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":0,"parent":42,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-68","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7mXc8-16","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/","url_meta":{"origin":68,"position":0},"title":"Social media guidelines","author":"Joseph Field","date":"March 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"These guidelines are for use by Sheffield Hallam\u00a0University\u00a0staff. If you want to reproduce them, please ask permission. 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Dig around, watch what other people are doing with it, look for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/files\/2019\/06\/New-social-300x288.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":58,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/teaching-and-learning\/","url_meta":{"origin":68,"position":4},"title":"Teaching and learning","author":"Joseph Field","date":"March 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Teaching and learning You and your students can use social media for academic purposes. Social media can enhance learning and teaching, and it enables effective approaches to supporting learner engagement. 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