Great community Management tips: http://mashable.com/2012/03/15/community-manager-engagement-tips/ Engagement is one of the most talked about metrics for ROI. Some argue that the raw number of “Likes”, comments and retweets don’t mean anything. Instead, they point to a fans’ level of investment, loyalty and engagement to determine whether social media is “paying off.” A community manager — or social media manager or brand manager, etc. — is responsible for growing this community, providing interesting content and increasing engagement, which should ultimately lead to increased revenue.

Mashable gathered tips from top community managers to help you boost activity on your social platforms — they’re grouped into various engagement-inducing “actions” below. The individuals we spoke with have built up engaged audiences for brands, such as Gap, JetBlue, Instagram and Jetsetter, so they know a thing or two about community building.

Calling for Offline Activity


“Connect to something physical: As a business with brick-and-mortar locations, our engagement in social media is only as powerful as its ability to also create engagement in our stores. In January, we ran a New Year’s campaign, inviting customers to share their New Year’s resolutions on Post-Its in our storefronts as well as on Twitter with the #sweet2012 hashtag. Customers covered the windows of our locations with thousands of Post-Its sharing their goals for the new year, like “run a marathon” and “get a job I’m passionate about” or (my favorite) “ask her to marry me.” By the end of the campaign, we’d collected over 2,000 post-its, and saw hundreds of tweets come through our #sweet2012 microsite online. Digital-to-physical tip for brick-and-mortar locations: Hashtags are increasingly part of the savvy consumer’s vernacular. You can use them in physical signage to share sentiments or themes for campaigns the same way you would on Twitter, all while providing a ‘secret invitation’ to tweet and get social.”
– McKee Floyd, director of brand development at Sweetgreen

“Don’t make delighting your community members a one-time incident. Create a lasting relationship with your users: After you establish a personal connection for the first time, reach out to them again for feedback, invite them to a Meetup/Hangout, or send them a holiday card. Demonstrating that you remember and value them as individuals makes a huge difference.”
– Teresa Wu, community manager at Google Docs

“Encourage members of your community to meet up with one another and form teams based around shared interests or a common location. Help these groups get the tools they need (educational material, access to meeting space, etc.) to become successful grassroots organizations. Promoting these peer networks is an excellent way to jumpstart engagement and help people feel supported by and invested in your mission.”
– Morgan Evans, community strategist at Etsy

“Do you have a conference, training session or event coming up where individuals will be meeting in person and spending several days together? Set up a community several weeks prior to the event and have them join. Place all logistical materials here and open it up with a simple questions like, “Where are you from?” and “What is your role at _____?” for them. This way, they not only get used to using the community, they are beyond small talk by the time they meet in person. Bonus: House all your materials in the community; no more binders!”
– Mike Fraietta, enterprise community manager at News Corp

Letting Them Know You Care


“Give the community a voice: Our blog is our main channel for news and community highlights. It’s the place we go to feature great photos and users, showcase how different types of people are using Instagram, and give new users tips on how to get more involved in the community. We post daily and are always on the lookout for interesting stories to tell. When we do feature a user, we make sure they know it — we want folks to be proud of their involvement in the community and know that we appreciate them.”
– Josh Riedel, community manager at Instagram

“Crowdsource content across platforms: Cross-pollinate content across your social media channels, playing to each channel’s individual strength. Websites like statigr.am or HootSuite are great tools to coordinate this type of tactic. At Sweetgreen, we’re always on the lookout for our favorite Instagram photos tagged #sweetgreen. We share those on our Facebook Page with a shout-out to the Instagram photog. Our Facebook fans see the image and make the connection to head to our Instagram page, and our Instagram photographers get love from the shout-out. By pairing the creativity of Instagram with the viral quality of Facebook, you double the power of your campaign and engage multiple user bases. Cross-pollination tip for consumer brands: Photos or content featuring your product or branding are priceless. Use a tool like statigr.am to share these photos easily on your Pinterest page or Facebook Page. Always give a shout out to the creator — they’ll appreciate the kudos and keep spreading your brand love.”
– McKee Floyd, director of brand development at Sweetgreen

“Get to know your customer service team: Jetsetter’s member service team answers over 2,000 customer service questions per week via phone and email, but also via Facebook and Twitter. Members love that they can get instant answers to their questions. Communication managers need to be very close to their member support teams. Answering questions via social platforms is a different beast and even the most seasoned customer service specialist will need training on social media interaction. So get to know the folks who interact with your members. Not only does it improve your response time, but together, you can learn a lot about your customers.”
– Jonathan Goldmann, social media manager at Jetsetter

“Identify leaders within your community and support these people as much as possible. They are some of your most valuable assets. Reach out to them, chat on the phone, buy them coffee, take a walk together. Use these opportunities to listen to how they feel about your brand/business and find out what resources you could provide.”
– Morgan Evans, community strategist at Etsy

“Fast Company is fortunate enough to have a very supportive and thriving online community of whip-smart professionals who are independent enough to have these really awesome in-depth conversations about our content on their own. Sometimes they want to know you are listening, which means it’s your responsibility to read and respond. Other times they want to have a spirited debate and as a brand it’s difficult to know when to get out of the way. My advice to you is: step back early! It’s much harder to show restraint, but your community will thank you for allowing them to run.”
– Sheena Medina, community manager at Fast Company

“I work out of our corporate office mostly, but when I am in the restaurants I like to pay close attention to our @-mentions and keyword searches. Once, a guest tweeted that she was served a warm beer to her hundred-something followers. I was able to figure out who she was by her picture and have a manager send over a new, ice-cold beer, even though she never asked her waitress for one. It was definitely a social media surprise-and-delight moment for me, and she left a happy customer.”