Distinguishing community management from social media marketing strategies

¶ … Community Management Is Different From Social Media Marketing

Community Management

Social Media Marketing

Differences between Community Management and Social Media Marketing

A number of years ago, people largely doubted as to whether investing in social media channels as a forum and medium for consumer brand relations was a feasible and sustainable strategy. However, years later, with the significant advancement and espousal of social media, contemporarily, majority of the business, for most part of the world, have some palpable social media presence (DeMers).

There are dissimilar ways to delineate the practice of attaining leads by means of social media, even though a great deal of them are basically alternatives of social media marketing to inbound marketing (DeMers). In recent periods, the term community management has come to be employed as a substitute for social media marketing or used interchangeably. Some would argue that every individual is a community manager, and technically they would be correct, in the sense that every person has a group or set of components which could be nurtured to steer better performance. However, these two terms should not be used in the same manner (Happe).

Community management and social media marketing are practices that came to life at the initial stages of forming social networks. There has been a problem of considering these terms as being the same yet they are completely dissimilar. Ultimately, what establishes the correspondence is the objectives. On one hand, the main objective of social media marketing is to obtain as much sales as possible, either by upturning the brand publicity or by increasing the online status and reputation of the entity. On the other hand, different from social media marketing, community management has nothing to do with marketing. The ultimate objective of community management is to efficaciously steer individuals to make a buy with the entity, however, not as a direct implication, as usually achieved as an outcome of sale promotional activities. There is entirely no marketing involved. Community management enables the retention of consumers through the development and engagement of an interested community of individuals regarding a certain discussion or brand. It encompasses enthusing and engaging people on an everyday basis within a community in order to form a strong relationship that generates a whole lot more than merely new consumers and followers. In certain ways it has come about to clone the 'word-of-mouth' type of marketing.

Moreover, community management and social media marketing are two divergently different and distinctive practices, and in as much as they do have some mutual correspondence, it is imperative to ascertain and understand the dissimilarities between these two aspects. The purpose of this report is to examine the following aspects: (a) what community management is and what it entails; (b) what social media marketing is and what it entails; and (c) what makes these two engagements different from each other. We conclude this report with recommendations regarding what every organization ought to follow when deploying these two tools.

Community Management

Contemporary customer relationship management systems collect detailed information regarding followers and supporters to the consumer database from their social network profiles. The term 'community management relationship' was coined by Ang (31) following the fact that the members of brand communities as well as the formal groups in social media are not automatically the consumers of one's organization. In addition, community management relationship accentuates and points out the significance of communication not just between consumers and organization but also consumers and affiliates between each other (Kaisheva and Timchenko 172).

Put simply, the term 'community management' is deemed to encompass any endeavors to develop, foster, or engage with a certain audience. Therefore, the implication of this is that if an individual is posting information on social media with the main resolve of building his or her social media audience, it in principle covers community management (DeMers). In fact, it is imperative to note that community management might not have any tangible correspondence with the market or commercial engagements. It encompasses the practice of forming or transforming a prevailing community in an endeavor to make it much stronger. In a contemporary setting, this customarily implies appealing to new individuals to a community, extending and stretching out to grown-up or inactive community partakers to get them back into the same belief and philosophy, or handing more prospects for existing community members to engage with one another. The central theme of correspondence is that enthusiastic community management on social media in general results in a bigger, more participative audience. The bigger and more participative the organization's audience is, the better prospects and opportunities the organization will have to transform its prevailing followers through its marketing endeavors (DeMers).

A good example is an organization forming a discussion post that requests the followers on its page to give their opinions on a certain product or service. The organization may have an underhanded intention to gain pointers and feedback from this post. However, it is imperative to take into consideration the main intent of the post, which is to have its followers take part in a dialogue, for the organization. In particular, this does not in a direct manner market the organization's products or services, and does not intrinsically increase the probability of an individual to buy the product or service. Rather, it is an act undertaken to enhance the well-being and vigor of the community, which can, lead to an increase in the probability of success of its social media marketing determinations (DeMers).

Community management is significant in not just the engagement of followers but also in the development of an active social community. It is imperative to note that having a community of followers that are loyal could imply the variance between having an ever-increasing social fan base and having the social profile diminish and fade away. Therefore, community management encompasses the adverse aspects such as criticism and negativity regarding the brand in question and making responses that ensure the brand can grow and have a positive reputation as an end result. It also takes into account having a plan of welcoming new members, as their first impression is significantly valuable. It also encompasses making certain that the information regarding the brand is up-to-date and that the content created is generally attractive or at least acceptable (Vilner). In particular, community management basically takes into account being a good virtual citizen, which encompasses being thankful to the followers for their engagement and also the promotion of top-notch content. However, it does not simply end there but it is imperative to create a connection with the followers and audience as this generates more dedication and commitment.

Social Media Marketing

Social media provides prospects to market that facilitate them to reach consumers where they subsist and operate. In the same manner, social media facilitates consumers to contribute and chip in with regard to the products and services created by markets to meet their needs. Taking this into consideration, (Tuten and Solomon 21) delineate social media marketing as the deployment of social media technologies, networks and software to generate, interconnect, deliver, and interchange offerings that have value for the different stakeholders of an organization. This delineation can be seen to come about in developing trends in social media. Whereas social media marketing originally influences the marketing strategies of brands, the contemporary applications of social media by businesses take into account social funding, for instance the use of Kickstarter to access capital for new business ventures and also social indexing, for instance first choice data from social users from cradles such as Google + (Tuten and Solomon 21).

It is imperative to note that social media marketing is similar and akin to any other kind of marketing. This is in the sense that the vital and critical objective is to motivate more individuals to make a purchase with the organization in consideration, more often than not attained by increasing the perceptibility and repute of the brand. More so, in this case, the dissimilarity is the medium as these approaches are executed on Twitter, Facebook or other profiles on social media. These approaches differ, but they are centered on how the medium is structured, in the way prospective consumers perceive the social page of the brand and subscribe to it. In turn, these prospective consumers obtain updates and are kept informed from that particular subscription. As a result, these either upturns the reputation of the brand with such consumers or instigate them to end up making a decision to buy (Green).

Conclusion

There is confusion between these two terms because in both instances, the social media marketer and the community manager, are liable for being conversational and responsive, for following the success and achievement of the interactions in steering the anticipated results, and at times they employ similar components (Happe). Practically, community management and social media marketing are terms that are considerably interrelated and in some way overlapping in content and effect. However, theoretically, each of these terms has a significantly distinctive purpose and meaning. Comprehending these distinctive function and utilizing each of them to their utmost advantage is vital for attaining an entity's objectives. If not, one will end up ensuing and going ahead with a considerably overall strategy, looking forward to some overall outcomes. More so, in marketing, these ambiguous delineations will not be beneficial in online marketing and therefore it is imperative to have a distinctive objective, a strategy that is detailed and ascertained implementation so as to be effective and successful (DeMers). Without doubt, for majority of online marketers, the ideal strategy is deemed to be one that integrates elements of both community management and social media marketing. Combining the quick, immediate advantages and provocation for immediate response of social media marketing with the continuing audience development and brand sustenance of community management results in a sustainable progression of the group of devoted and committed followers to take delivery of the entity's marketing communications and messages.

Recommendation

The recommendation given is that in markets with low intricacy, the emphasis should be placed on social media marketing because the relationship between the organization and the consumers does not necessitate being comprehensive. The objective is to provide infrastructure and management that generates cognizance and a feeling of connection to the brand. On the other hand, community management makes sense in markets with high intricacy (Happe). In particular, if the process of decision-making is intricate and lengthy to reach a conversation, the consumers significantly benefit through interaction and forming relationships with other consumers. In addition, the consumers are introduced to affiliated product and service providers who can assist them to make the most of and utilize their value (Happe).

In order to determine which of the two, social media marketing, and community management is most fitting for an entity, it is imperative to examine the objectives and necessities. If the goal of the entity is to spread and disseminate the word regarding what it is all about and who ought to join, then social media marketing is recommended. This is for the reason that social media marketing can generate a wider and more extensive audience (Binias). On the other hand, if the objective is to form strong, prevailing relationships, generate significant interactions, and grow into more of a resource for the followers, then community management is recommended. This is for the reason that community management makes it possible to ensure there is commitment of time to the followers, generate stronger communication by via online community together with all its prospective communication forms that include content creation and forums for discussion (Green).