Each day the world is becoming more connected: Facebook has almost one billion active users, Twitter is key in breaking news stories as well as being people’s preferred second screen when watching popular TV shows. Studies show that social networking is the most popular online activity, making up almost 1/5 the total time spent online, with the number of people accessing it through smartphones and tablets rapidly increasing.

Social media has become the way people communicate with each other – and now also brands. Daily you’ll come across both positive and negative tweets, +1 stories or Facebook shares about brands, all of which are being added to the constant growing online library of content.

Social is a great way for brands and organisations to speak directly to consumers in real-time and vice versa. However being ‘constantly available’ online also means there needs to be someone monitoring and actively taking part in the conversations about the brand. These days, the average sized company will not have just one person, but a whole team dedicated to social media. And at the heart of this team is the community manager (or managers).

Armed with an understanding of the brand’s history and place in the market, the community managers are there to listen, monitor and engage with the community. When done well, this will help build brand awareness and loyalty, deal with customer queries and ultimately drive overall business goals.

But not everyone is a natural born community manager. Here are the five qualities a community manager ought to have:

Ingenuity – A large part of the role involves creating engaging content that entertains the community. It doesn’t all need to revolve around cats doing silly things mind…

Passion – The community manager should have a thirst for knowledge and should know everything about the brand and its community in order to communicate a brand’s values. This brings us nicely on to…

Flexibility – It is important to have confidence in a strategy, but also try new approaches if necessary. Social media communities are constantly changing, and so a content plan must have a certain degree of flexibility.

Honesty – It is never good for brands to hide or ignore challenging questions. The best approach is usually to deal with issues with swiftly without creating a smokescreen.

Awareness – It is all about being in the know. Knowing who to talk to and how best to engage with people.

If you’re interested in how we can help your brand, get in touch today.