Managing the online community

After putting together a credible strategy, the day-to-day work of a social media campaign should be carried out by an online community manager. The community manager (CM) is

becoming a central figure in the marketing process. "The community manager, being on the front line, the first person that client go to for que tions, knows about the brand more than anyone else," said Darine Sabbagh , social media and digital marketing consultant. "The brand is as cool, as friendly, and as visible a the community manager."

RISE OF A NEW ROLE The role of the community manager reigning over the online society has become essential. According to Mohamed Hijazi , a social media consultant, the online community can make a huge difference for a brand with direct impact on profits or lo ses. "Online community managers helped us develop relationships with our fans in a cost effective way," said Marie Jose Abed, Regional Communication Manager at Hamra Shopping and Trading (HST), known as GS. Locally, the online community is made up mostly of the 16-30 year old generation, tech savvy, where Engli h dominate , followed by French and Arabic. "The local online community i highly egmented, even more than the general population," said Hijazi. It has critical clans, and gets irritated easily. They also crave attention and demand to be treated royally. Special rules must be taken into consideration while etting guideline for online community management. Many people

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assume a CM isju t a Face book addict. Most companies think hey can hand the task to any fre hly graduated geek who does well on social media. But a CM'sjob goes beyond this. According to Sabbagh, most companies do not feel how trategic this role is. "It is not an intern's job," said Ziad Kamel, founder ofCouqley, a French bistro. A CM has a multitude of tasks and, according to Abed, he is a person able to build a brand's online presence- or de roy it.

COMMUNICATE AND MARKET Communication and marketing i the mo t obvious role that a community manager i tasked \vith. 'If you want to market a brand over ocial media, remember EID,' aid Kamel, "Engage online Interact with customer and Diffuse negativity." Social media increases top of mind awarene and create a brand personality. The CM must start by becoming familiar with the brand's audience said Sabbagh. Then a story online must be told. "Facebook post need to be interactive and intere ting at the same time," said Abed. It i al o the CM' ta k to define the tone of messages. "We need to be authentic, genuine, and personal," said Abed. Lot of social pages ask question in order to drive followers to start a conversation about the brand. This creates a buzz and rai e audience number and rate of engagement. According to Ayman Itani, Founder of Think Media Labs, a specialized social media agency, it is difficult to get people involved in a brand's online

activity. Po ts should be intere ting, interactive, and innovative. It is common that a brand run out of appropriate content to feed it ocial media networks. A well prepared chedule is es ential to set the topics that a community manager will be focu ing on during a week, a month, or over a longer period of time. G prepares on a monthly basis a calendar of concerns and rughlight of the month that the team follows and po ts. The length of each po t i taken into consideration. Large paragraph have low engagement rate becau e people often won't read the whole thing. "The impler the po t is, the higher the engagement rate " said Abed. Some brand do truggle with the regularity of update . "It is recommended to be active every day becau e users expect it," aid Itani. The larger the page's reach grows, the more the page is clo er to u er generated content. Thi i the type of content provided by followers. These kind of interactive follower are called Super Fan at Roadster Diner. They end unique picture enjoying Road ter food. It i easy to hare back or retweet thi kind of post becau e they derive from the community, and intere t thi community at the same time. A CM also work on creating incentive for followers. Incentive can be emotional, physical, monetary, or even piritual. Couqley offered a free de ert and a chance to win a trip for two to Pari with each client reserving online. Before the incentive, Couqley had four online re ervation per month. Within two month of the offer the re taurant reached 1,700 online reservation and 6,200 guest . Competitions al o help increa e brand awareness. G po t on a regular basis a picture of a new product in its tore and invites follower to gues the brand and a chance to win it. Medco also relie on competitions to drive engagement. Its Lucky Pump competition gave competitor a chance to win a trip to Abu Dhabi to watch Formula One with adim Mehanna, Medco' brand amba ador. Humanizing online activity also helps attract an audience. As Couqley Kamel aid, ocial media would be just media without the ocial

element in it. ' We per onalize our presence by po ting about our team, our event , and our activities,' aid Abed. Consumer are intere ted in knowing more about what behind the brand name.

CREATE INTEREST One of the challenging ta k in community management is creating intere t when follower are not attracted to a particular brand. Medco managed to take gasoline from being a ba ic not-so-sexy commodity to a ocially active brand. Medco tudied why and when u er log into Facebook. It found that it is mainly done for entertainment. "We decided to transform a prime nece sity into a ocial interaction," said Luciana Younis ocial Media trategist at Medco. The company' online community hifted its activity to a personal, livelier approach personalizing online posts. Mercury, the yellow character of Medco smile each time the gasoline table how a drop in fuel price and has piky hair and a mad expre ion when price go up. The team also added funny pictw·es to drive engagement. The picture of Lebanon drowning in water in 1971 versus a imilar picture in 2013 grabbed 16,000 view and 670 like comments and hare . Medco also share it Corporate Social Re pon ibility activitie online. The

baring is Caring campaign a ked for 1,000 like in order for Medco to make a donation to the Jeune e Centre Ia Drogue campaign. The campaign reached 1,555 likes, comment and hares, and reached more than 29,000 people.

SATIFY CUSTOMERS Customer support i big part of community management. Social media has become the first channel through which cu tomers report a product or a bad experience. People no longer bother calling or complaining in private. They just spread the word through social media. Before these channel marketing literature taught that one unhappy cu tomer tells even people about their experience, said Kamel. But with social media, one unhappy cu to mer tell an almost unlimited number of people about their bad experience. Community management mean re pending as fa t a po ible with instant damage control and taking immediate deci ion regarding a complaint. "If a bad experience is reported, the community manager must have the authority to correct it in the most appropriate way, ' said Kamel.

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COVER ST0-;··.~~1;~.­,. . ·11 t'

S()CIAL .NIEDIA 0 Links: Click this article's entry in 'Table of Contents' on our website

Watching the watchers A number of tools are available to measure a

brand performance in the digital public

Keeping track of it online trategy and management and measuring it performance are a mu t for every brand. Key performance indicators are metrics that can inform the

company about their client ba e. everal online platforms are available to user to help them gather the e metrics uch as Google Analytics. ocial Bakers and Woopra. Metric allow companie to collect large amount of data about their con umer , how they are interacting with the ocial media campaign and what their level of engagement is. The collected data will be used for future corporate decision . By analyzing thi digital information, brand and companie can turn the virtual presence of follower into a tangible marketing tool. Online metrics are the medium through which a brand or company can tran form a digital trategy into reality.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS Being able to dig into the figure underlying a ocial media strategy i crucial. Specialized metric are there to help under tand the performance of social media pages and help companies identify bu ine problem and resolve them. Result mainly derive from analyzing Key Performance Indicator . The e KPI are numerous but some of them are more important than other . Ayman Itani, Founder of Think Media Labs, a specialized ocial media agency, aid that there are two categorie ofKPI . The built-in KPls natively

available on ocial media platform how the page administrator who the visitors of the page are, their age groups and other ba ic information. The other source is metric . They are divided into public ones, which help benchmark activity versus competitor , and private ones, which give a more in-depth exploration of the online activity of the brand itself. Itani said that a combination of both, built-in and external analy i platform , i e ential.

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FAMOUS METRICS Engagement Rate i a KPI that i tied to the quality of content community size, quantity of like~. comment , and hares. According to ltani the company mu t know how to amend the content of its page to increase thi KPl: 'It · not onlv about the number of followers/ like ."Share activity · one of the ~o t important metrics to take into con ideration. It a e e- the frequency of the like hare a po t get . The national flag chee-ecake pos ed on Road ter' Facebook page on Independence Day instantly got 1,000 like and 25 shares. Brand Activity i another KPI that loo · a how active the brand is in posting update to it ocial media. Respo - Rate measures the percentage of users' que tions that the brand addre e . ' We have an edge on fa t re ponse to complaint or praise becau e we are in a fast paced industry, ' said Sahar Dumyaii. ·or Brand Manager at Roadster. Audience Demographic i a na IYe reporting metric, which provide in ights into the age group. nder. and location of a brand' audience. Grand Cinemas' Facebook audience is made up of 13 to 34 year olds, mostlymale .ABC audience -madeupof35 to54yearoldsandi 54 percent male. Targeted advertisingcampai can help rectify certain aspect of the brand' audience dem - phic. Reach Metric is a tool which measures the number of people reached through your content. For example, it can tell u thar a po:. ed m _ e was seen by 11,000 people. Promoted po t and other fo ~of ads ignificantly help boo t reach rate. Click Tracking · ~ a metric that a e e the number of clicks that a brand or conten !!e " • Iobile U age analytics helps the brand identify the number and specifications of mobile users. This can be gleaned from the web-· re analytic and mobile app analytics, if the brand has a mobile app. mobile ite, or wa as e ing the need for a mobile presence. Mo t social media u er are accessing content from their mobile o the content needs to be mobile fliendly .