Without community management, there can be no visibility today. It is an essential lever for implementing a company's marketing strategy. But does community management have a role to play in terms of sales strategy? Are community managers the salespeople of tomorrow? Iyad Khaski, a digital entrepreneur, gives us some answers and shares his experience, putting into perspective the real impact of social networks for and by businesses.
Two hours and 27 minutes per day. This is the average amount of time a user will spend browsing social networks worldwide in 2021. That's 2 minutes more per day than in 2020. Same trend in France. The 1 hour and 46 minutes per day, 5 minutes more than in 2020.
Another observation: in 2019, 73 % marketing managers think that their social network marketing has been "fairly effective" or "very effective" in developing their business.
All these factors attest to the importance and usefulness of social networks, primary marketing channel for marketers in 2022. They are genuine tools for exchange, enabling you to create a network and offer an exponential number of possibilities.
Community management, an essential part of growing your business
Le community management is to apply a marketing and sales strategy which allows you to achieve your business objectives by creating a community (social media management). Today, it is clear that the products and services provided or sold by companies are no longer self-sufficient. Something else is needed. Competition is fierce, and finding the same product or service in several companies is commonplace. What makes them different? The way in which they are promoted.
A way of developing a lucrative project...
How did my social networking project become a thriving business, in partnership with France's largest gaming group? The context: sports fans want to talk about what drives them. How do you go about it? What strategy should they adopt? By leveraging social networks and following a two-stage plan.
First of all, you need to create a Twitter account and define an editorial line. Next, the strategy involves creating regular content. The aim is to encourage the community to react on a daily basis. The editorial line for this project is therefore based on the following three values: authenticity, regularity and creativity.
And the results are in. In February 2019, after less than two years in existence, the Twitter account already has more than 7,000 followers. A rise that was immediately hailed by the largest gaming group in France, via a private Twitter message. "They appreciated our work, and wanted to meet with us to discuss a future collaboration, which will prove constructive and fruitful." So much so that they are planning a major project: the creation of a sports betting competition between users on Twitter. The stakeholders in this operation are as follows: the Twitter account "We, the organisers". But also the client "France's largest gaming group", and the participants - Twitter users.
... and attract new customers
This interactive event has enabled us to expand our community and, as a result, "our visibility and our sales force". But it also: "Involved users who had content to promote on their page, which also increased their sales force". And finally: "To promote our partner, who gets a significant number of new customers.
"Community management helped us convert this operation into real financial income.
The usefulness of community management: overcoming certain preconceived ideas
The first misconception: "Posting on social networks is time-consuming and pointless". There's an infinite amount of content on social networks, so it's important to select the content that's really useful. In fact, it seems essential to spend your time finding out about, observing and reading content that is targeted at your area of expertise, in order to add real business value. So, pragmatism is the key. And you need to optimise your time.
Another cliché: "It's salespeople who call customers, not community managers with their publications!" This is both true and false.
"It's true that community managers don't call customers directly, but they do help to attract future customers to the company.
In fact, like salespeople, they regularly use social networks to make appointments with their current or future customers. If the company's social networks are attractive, interactive and well-maintained, people are much more likely to use this service afterwards. So we become customers thanks to social networks.
"Impossible to calculate the ROI (Return on Investment) of community management". Measuring performance on social networks does indeed seem difficult. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to calculate this ROI. Tools exist. For example, the Hootsuite website allows you to calculate the actual conversion rate of visits to your site via your social networks. This is a concrete, quantified measure. Let's take the problem in reverse, with the Risk of Non-Investment (RONI). It seems legitimate to ask whether a company's presence on social networks is actively serving it.
"But has anyone ever wondered whether a company's absence from social networks might actually be doing it a disservice?
One of the risks is that Internet users create their own social presence instead of the company. Coca Cola came close to paying the price. The group did not have an official page on social networks. However, it did have an unofficial page, which posed a risk to the company's image, and therefore to its growth. Fortunately for Coca-Cola, the publicity was not negative. As a result, the American company ended up recruiting the administrators of this unofficial page to manage its communications.
The most important thing to remember is the usefulness and value of social networks for businesses, for three main reasons. Profitability, first and foremost. The need to control the image projected by your company. And finally, the benefits in terms of improving communication within the company itself. Community management is an indispensable and inseparable element of marketing strategy. It also contributes to the sales strategy by attracting the company's future customers via social networks. Hence the need for training to learn how to design and deploy a strategy for presence and influence on social networks.
