1. Who are our Community Managers?
Our Community Managers are are online everyday, have incredible reach through their blog(s) following, number of friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, number of groups they belong to, etc. They are true influencers among their social connections.
To ensure authenticity and credibility, they are selected to mirror your brand’s target demographic and geographic priorities. They are already aware of and passionate about your products and services.
We designed our business model to flex with our client needs allowing us to scale up or down depending on demand. We have a core number of managers that are used on a regular basis and have as many at 65+ working at any time. Because they work virtually it is less important where they are located. That said, most are based across Canada and the US. The management team who monitors and manages our Community Managers work out of our Toronto office.
2. How do Community Managers work?
Our Community Managers work 2 – 4 hours a day, from their homes, on your brand’s behalf. They follow a firm schedule of required social interactions provided to them by ShesConnected, including: liking your brand’s fan page, joining different target-relevant groups, promoting your message on your brand’s behalf, etc.
Our Community Managers are not creating new content – they are sharing content with others that has already been created. All of their messaging has been pre-approved.
We find it is better to hire 4 Community Managers at 2 hours/day than hiring one to work 8 hours/day. The former provides a greater reach and better quality of service (managers won’t get bored working 8 hours on outreach each day).
We have developed this process and methodology based on a variety of interconnections across different social channels over the past 3.5 years. It is both efficient and effective.
3. How do you find your social channels?
Over the past 4.5 years, we have accumulated a fluid database of over 400,000+ blogs, social networks, Twitter influencers, forums, etc., from which we customize your Community Management plan, based on your target demographics/psychographics. Our database grows every month we work with you as we add channels that are relevant to your brands.
4. How do your Community Managers engage their social networks?
We offer three types of community engagement. The first type of engagement is through “inbound” e.g. responding to a comment or posting. The second type of engagement is “out bound”. This type of engagement is not a specific response to a client posting. Here our Community Management team builds the brand’s Community by engaging and building relationships across blogs, twitter, facebook, discussion forums, etc. We accomplish this by directly interacting with consumers.
5. What if the Community Managers post something we don’t like?
We develop a Communications Guideline Document for each of our clients and use this ‘playbook’ to train our Community Management team. Included in the CGD is all the brand’s pre-approved messaging, no matter the situation. Our Community Managers then use this messaging matrix in their communications, sometimes tweaking it in their own personally way but always staying on message. Additionally, our Community Managers ensure their messaging coincides with your in-market activities: they will talk up your promotion leading up to and during your promotional period and talk about your brand in general during a non-promotion period.
6. What if we have a big promotion we want to communicate?
We can dial up or down our Community Managers’ level of social activity according to your marketing calendar. If your in-market activity is heavy, for example due to a promotion, we recommend that our Community Managers increase their level of social activity accordingly, and then reduce it during quiet periods for your brand. However, they will still maintain their conversations/connections to maintain the authenticity of their relationships. Once your brand is ready to ramp up its marketing activity, the Community Managers will follow suit.
7. Isn’t this spam?
No. Because these women and mean are themselves working women or men, moms with kids, or both, etc., who are always connecting with other like minded women or men, in your demographic. During the 2 – 4 hours per day when they are representing your brand, they clearly represent themselves as Community Managers. We maintain a transparent approach, unlike spammers.
Additionally, our Community Managers are already fans and advocates of your product (one of our selection criteria) – they just now get paid to endorse it. This professional service relationship between our Community Managers and your brand is viewed favourably within their communities/connections, demonstrating the value the brand places on these women and their connections that the brand pays them to endorse its product/service.
8. Can I just hire your Community Managers for one campaign?
Our Community Management philosophy recognizes that social really is a 365 days a year/ 24 hours a day media and needs to be addressed as such. Our experience over the past 4.5 years has taught us that you cannot build meaningful relationships with digital women on a campaign basis but over the long-term.
Like any trust-based relationship, these relationships can take time to nurture. Not all of our Community Managers’ communications with their connections are about your brand as they are also building the relationships with their network in order to secure their trust so when they do communicate your brand message it carries much more weight and credibility.
Our Community Managers only represent one brand so not to dilute their level of influence with their audience/network. Credibility for your brand/message will become a factor if our Community Managers only reach out to their networks when you have something to promote.
for shorter term campaigns please refer to our Pay-Per-Post or Brand Ambassador Blogger programs.
9. How often do Community Managers promote our brand?
We have developed a formula that combines i) direct messaging for promotions (peak marketing periods) and ii) indirect messaging using content from your existing assets (flyers, brochures, website, etc.) during non-peak marketing periods. This formula is customized for each client’s objectives and marketing plans/calendar.
When not promoting your brand directly or indirectly they are making new friends and connections and growing their social networking base to increase the number of people they can reach out to on your behalf.
10. What if our product appeals to men and/or women?
Social media is a communications platform that appeals more to women for building and maintaining conversations and sharing information. While quite social, men don’t tend to converse and share as much. Many of the sites our Community Managers belong to have both male and female members so their reach extends beyond women.
11. How does Community Management integrate with our other marketing and digital activities?
Beautifully. Community Management amplifies your other activities by building awareness for your product/service in a very targeted fashion.
Social media is a platform for facilitating conversations. None of your other media channels can facilitate conversations with your consumers like Community Management. When a friend or connection recommends a product or service, the friend is more likely to listen and act upon their suggestion than if the message came from the brand.
12. How do you work with our agencies?
Oh no, not another agency! Don’t worry — we place nice in the sand box.
We are not in conflict with any of your other agencies and are definitely team players. Truth is no one else has the infrastructure and processes – developed over 4.5 years – to do what we do. Other agencies typically don’t have the appropriate staffing for managing communities and many will hire students or use junior account people. They recognize our niche and are usually happy to have us join the team.
To that end, we will work alongside your brand and agencies (marketing, digital, pr, promotions, experiential, etc.) to amplify your planned in-market activities.
We do prefer to be involved in the process early on as we can provide better value and develop a better Community Management plan for you and your team.
13. Why should we work with you?
We know social media. We own and operate our own social networking site that has and continues to provide us with valuable insights into social marketing habits, needs, usage, etc. Social media is 100% of our focus.
Our co-founders are both experts in the digital and mobile fields and speak at social media events. Donna Marie Antoniadis was named to Forbes 20 Best-Branded Women on Twitter.
14. How do you measure results?
We provide a monthly detailed report. The specific metrics (i.e., what we capture, measure and analyze) is developed in conjunction with the brand/its agencies. We provide a template of what we would like to capture, then to through the template to determine the exact data element that needs to be collected, frequency of collection, and who is responsible.