Create a safe Marketing Strategy to grow social media marketing, welcoming environment for your customers to grow a community. Learn the essentials of great social management.
Social management is a key component of any PR or marketing strategy. It creates a sense of identity around your brand, which is essential in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.
94 percent of customers say that the way a brand treats its customers influences their purchase decision. Make that treatment positive and build closer relationships with customers through great social management.
What is social management ( social media Marketing Strategy) ?
Social management involves creating a safe, inviting, and engaging environment for customers to interact with each other and your brand. It’s not limited to one location — communities can be everywhere, from social media (social media Marketing Strategy ) platforms like TikTok or LinkedIn to other areas like Discord or online forums.
Managing your brand’s community can create a loyal customer base with a sense of purpose. A social management strategy is essential to growing a successful online community in 2025.
Like setting up a social media (social media Marketing Strategy ) marketing plan and creating metrics for success – such as brand awareness or customer support.
In some ways, online communities have taken precedence over in-person memberships. Small business owners are taking advantage of this by creating a place for like-minded customers to connect in the digital world.
Community management can benefit your business by:
- Increasing lead generation and customer retention
- Establishing a personal connection with customers
- Gaining valuable feedback
- Increasing revenue by attracting new customers
- Creating a great customer experience
- Engaging with customers and learning more about what they want
- Finding brand ambassadors
- Getting more user-generated content
- Increasing engagement
Take your online community where your target audience spends time. Define how you want to represent your brand – remember that consumers want authentic communities.
“One of the things that many companies get wrong is that they set up a digital space and think that’s what a community is,” says Ryan Ramsey, founder of the Chief Design Officer School. “Communities are about connections, conversations, impact, and sharing, not tools. Even though tools are easier to set up and manage these days, it doesn’t make a difference.
What’s the difference between social media management and community management?
Social media ( social media Marketing Strategy) and community may sound like interchangeable terms – but that’s not always the case. Your community doesn’t have to be on a social media platform. And not every social media account is meant to be about creating a sense of community.
Social media managers are more concerned with content creation and promotion. A social media manager may be tasked with:
- Planning social posts
- Implementing the best hashtags
- Handling accounts across multiple apps
- Monitoring all social media (social media Marketing Strategy ) platforms
- Communicating as a brand
- Creating new content
On the other hand, community managers prioritize the following:
- Responding to customer messages
- Moderating spaces
- Building more personal relationships
- Finding ways to foster engagement
- Strategy for community growth
6 Different Types of Community Management (social media Marketing Strategy )
When thinking about community management, the SPACES model developed by CMX is a useful tool. Businesses are buying into the idea of virtual communities, with 86% of businesses saying that community is important to their mission.
1. Support Communities
Customer support-focused communities are valuable places where customers can help each other. These communities allow users to tackle common customer support questions instead of brands.
2. Product Communities
Listening to customer feedback on product ideas and designs helps you create products that appeal to your target audience. It creates a personal connection between customers and your brand because they see that their voices matter.
3. Acquisition and Support Communities
Many businesses already have loyal customers who aren’t afraid to shout their support from the rooftops—50% of consumers tell their friends about their favorite brands. Empower your brand advocates by setting up a space for them to better spread brand awareness. Consumers trust brands more than other shoppers, so building an advocacy community can be just as successful (and more cost-effective) as influencer marketing.
4. Content and Contribution Communities
Sometimes, content marketing is as simple as creating a platform for users to share their content. Content and contribution-focused communities are ideal for consumers looking for resources, ideas, and initiatives. These communities typically require a management team to curate certain topics, but otherwise, the community is usually self-managed.
5. Engagement Communities
Communities don’t have to be based entirely on your products, services, or brand. Successful communities often emerge when brands create a space for consumers to discuss common interests in their industry. A brand that provides a place for users with similar interests to connect can strengthen brand awareness and build a loyal customer base.
6. Success Communities
If a support community is helpful, consider starting a success community. Success communities go beyond answering customer questions and encourage users to share tips, advice, best practices, improvement ideas, and more.
How to Create a Community Management Strategy
Creating a community management strategy is essential for all businesses looking to build a memorable brand identity in 2025. Whether it’s an online forum, a homeowners association (HOA), or a social media (social media Marketing Strategy ) channel, the right strategy will help you build an active and engaged community that supports your business goals.
Here are some tips to get you started.
Create and execute goals
Define your community’s goals and build strategies around those goals. Think about the SPACES model and choose one type of community to focus on first. Once these marketing strategies are in place, continue to refine them to meet changing customer needs and expectations.
Then, decide where you’ll host your community:
Create engaging content
The quality and quantity of content play a key role in successful community management. Create engaging, entertaining, interesting, and valuable social content (social media Marketing Strategy ) that is relevant to your target audience demographic. It’s also important to optimize your content for SEO to rank in search engines and drive traffic.
Examples of engaging content include:
- Blog posts with compelling visuals, data, and quotes
- Videos that illustrate product uses or repurpose blog post content
- Podcasts that discuss relevant industry news or company updates
- Infographics with actionable checklists
- Webinars featuring industry leaders
- Testimonials from loyal customers
Moderate Interaction
As your community grows, invest time in monitoring interactions between community members. Many small businesses hire a freelance community manager at this point.
Otherwise, you should be able to respond promptly to customer feedback and moderate hostile or inappropriate conversations. Also, consider enforcing a code of conduct for expected member behavior. Taking a hands-on approach that focuses more on moderation than interaction is a good idea, as it encourages other community members to interact with each other rather than waiting for the “expert” to jump in.
“Running a supportive community is about recognizing that encouraging others to respond has long-term benefits,” says Rumsey. “When members hear from more than one person, they get a variety of perspectives to learn from.”
Analyze metrics
Review your analytics to measure your performance against your goals. Identify areas for improvement and track progress toward achieving your strategy’s goals. If things go wrong, adjust and improve your social (social media Marketing Strategy ) media strategy.
Consider analyzing your metrics with the following:
- Social media (social media Marketing Strategy ) analytics tools
- Social (social media Marketing Strategy ) listening tools
- Surveys from users
- Engagement rates from community members
Engage with members regularly
Interact with your members at least once a week to build a strong community and long-term relationships.
For example, participate in conversations, answer customer questions, and express gratitude to customers, which will ultimately lead to improved loyalty.
Engage with members through the following methods:
- Direct messages on social (social media Marketing Strategy ) media
- Email newsletters
- Polls
- Surveys
- Q&A
- Live streams
Tips for growing your community
Setting up and managing a community is the start of creating a virtual home for your crowd. If you want to grow your business and increase brand awareness, invest in growing your community.
Here are some tips for growing your brand’s digital community:
- Understand your audience. Get to know your users and their interests to tailor your content to them.
- Promote content. Share your community’s content on other social media (social media Marketing Strategy ) channels and platforms to increase visibility.
- Use visuals. Use videos, infographics, images, and other visuals to make your content stand out and be more engaging.
- Respond quickly. Respond to comments and messages in a timely manner to show that you care and are paying attention.
- Invite feedback. Ask questions and invite feedback to get to know your users better and keep them engaged.
- Host events. Host online events to engage with your community, hear what they have to say, and give something back.
- Set goals. Set goals for yourself and your team members to track progress and measure success.
- Invest in SEO. Optimize your content for search so that more users can find your site and community.
- Use influencers. Work with influencers in your niche to promote your community.
- Connect with other communities. Connecting with other communities can foster collaboration and support.
- Celebrate achievements. Celebrating members’ achievements can build morale and increase pride in the community.
- Upgrade your hosting platform. A free version or low-cost tier of Slack or other software is great when you’re starting out. But as you grow, you’ll need a platform provider with additional features to meet the needs of a larger community and make management easier.
- Integrate your community and social strategies (social media Marketing Strategy ). Make sure your community management strategy and your social media (social media Marketing Strategy ) marketing strategy are closely intertwined.
- Encourage community growth. Build personal connections to grow your community to reach new consumers while generating additional revenue.
While a small community is more manageable, a large community means a larger consumer base from which to glean valuable insights. You can learn a lot from the conversations within your community. Pay attention to what users are asking, interested in, and confused about. Community management isn’t just about running a happy and successful community — it’s about learning from your community while also giving them space to learn from each other.
“A lot of great event research can be done by observing topic themes, questions, solutions, etc. by maintaining a community,” says Rumsey.
Build a home for your crowd with a freelance community manager
As your community grows, you’ll need strategic community management. Small business owners can struggle to balance running a business, maintaining an online presence, and managing a community.
You don’t have to do everything yourself.
Fiverr freelancers can perform a variety of community management services, such as development, community care, and management and engagement by freelance community managers on Fiverr.
Join Fiverr today to get professional help building and maintaining your online community.