Community management
Also called social media community management, online community management
What is community management?
Community management is the work of building and looking after relationships with your audience on social media and in online communities. It includes replying to comments and direct messages, answering questions, welcoming new followers, moderating spam and abuse, handling complaints and encouraging conversation among members. It turns an audience into a community.
It overlaps with customer service but has a different focus. Customer service solves individual problems. Community management also shapes the tone of the space, highlights members, gathers feedback and creates reasons for people to talk to each other.
Communities can live on public profiles, in Facebook Groups, Discord servers, LinkedIn groups, broadcast channels or a brand's own forum.
Why community management matters
Replies matter. People notice when a brand answers quickly and kindly, and so do onlookers reading the thread. Active conversation also tends to boost engagement, which helps posts reach more people.
A strong community becomes a source of social proof, user content, product ideas and loyal customers who recommend you to others.
How to manage a social media community
- Set a target response time and check comments and messages at least daily.
- Write short reply guidelines in your brand voice.
- Move private issues to direct messages and solve them there.
- Hide or remove spam and abuse, and publish simple community rules.
- Highlight members and their posts regularly.
Community management FAQ
What does a community manager do?
They reply to comments and messages, moderate discussions, start conversations, gather feedback and build relationships with followers and customers.
Should I reply to every comment?
Reply to as many genuine comments as you can, especially questions and complaints. Not every emoji needs a reply, but conversation is part of why people follow brands.
Related terms
Engagement is how people interact with a post: likes, comments, shares, saves, replies and clicks. It shows content is landing, not just being seen.
Social listening is tracking what people say online about your brand, competitors and industry, then using it to improve products and content.
Brand voice is the consistent personality a business shows in its words: the vocabulary, rhythm and attitude that make its writing recognizable.
A social media manager plans, creates, posts and measures a brand's social content, and handles comments, messages and community.
User-generated content (UGC) is content made by customers or fans, not the brand: photos, videos, reviews and posts about a product.