Trust Your Community Manager (You might get 4,000 likes in 6 minutes)

A few weeks ago, I was on the bus and saw the internet lose it’s collective self over the announcement of Disney making new Star Wars movies.

When I got home to my computer and saw this post, it was 6 minutes old and already had 4,000 likes.

I would maim for this kind of engagement.

When I went back to take a screenshot, it was at over 14,000 likes with over 2,000 shares and 229 comments (it eventually doubled all of that),  – including a like and a share from me. For a TV show on extended hiatus, this is damn good. Getting engagement like this would result in a Sally Field moment for me. No one else in the office would care quite as much, but I’d be giddy. I’ve posted something that has gotten a thousand likes and it totally makes my day.

So how did they do it? Well, for starters, it helps that they have 1,328,577 fans. But not every post by the Community community manager is that popular. A lot of them get up to 7,000 likes. Quite a few are under 1,000. My best guess on this one?

1. Reactive Storytelling: There was a lot of buzz on Facebook and Twitter about Disney buying LucasFilms and a Star Wars VII and they jumped on the story of the day. Fast.

2. Trust: They were able to jump on it. Fast. I imagine it was done before running it up a food chain at NBC.

They were able to take show content, throw some impact font on it and post it at the same time their fans were discussing this. It probably would have done okay if they had waited and asked for permission, but not nearly that well. Which is why they had to act right away. The same way AMC did with Oreo:

1,910 RTs. How do you like them apples? (Just don’t sneak the apple into the theatre).

So why did all of this work so well? Someone trusted them to just do it.  Social media doesn’t have time to wait for you to be awesome. You need to be awesome and you need to be awesome as soon as possible. This means a community manager need to know your fans, and more importantly, know your brand. If you’ve got that and you’ve got trust, then you’ve got it made.

On the other hand, I completely get why you might be hesitant to just hand the keys over to your content and your brand. Letting your community manager be your public voice on the regular is scary. Bad things can happen when you do (which is a story for another day). But here’s the thing: a good (and responsible) community manager cares about your brand as much as you do. They don’t want to post in a voice that is off brand or make your brand look bad. They want your brand to be out there having authentic conversations with your fans. They want to respond before it’s a problem. They want to cheer fans on and delight them with content they’ll love. They want you to be the best brand on social media. And they want you to trust them to do it.

It’s not easy, but a little trust in your community manager can go a long way.

Shakespeare Got to Get Paid: Or why I don’t hate Facebook (today)

You’ve probably got your knickers in a knot about Facebook changing their algorithm and your page reach dropping. I don’t. Because it isn’t the worst thing ever.

The list of worst things ever include wars, genocide, famine, and snakes (well, the last one is the worst in my books). It doesn’t include charging businesses to advertise. Because even Zuckerberg got to get paid (and pay his staff). Facebook isn’t a non-profit that exists to entertain me with new kitten videos.

I know. It sucks that you can’t reach as many of your fans as you used to. I get that. My pages aren’t reaching as many fans as they used to and on the surface, that’s not cool.

But here’s why I’m actually okay with it: I’m reaching the people who care. The people who click like or comment or share? They’re telling Facebook, “hey! I don’t just Like this page, I actually like it and care to see what they have to say. Show me more! Fill my newsfeed!” And when they do that, their friends are seeing it. And their friends are saying, “hey, my friend just liked something by that page and it looks cool, maybe I should like it too!” And it spreads. Like a virus  (if viruses were made of kitten videos). In some cases, with zero ads running, my reach dropped while my engagement went up.

So, here’s how you deal. Don’t ask me to add the page to my interests and don’t pay to reach everyone. Just focus on creating content I’ll care about. Content I’ll interact with. And then Facebook will keep showing me what you have to offer.

Are you Boo the Cutest Dog in the World? Then keep on keeping on with the cute.

I was one of over 7,000 people who shared an ad. They didn’t pay for me to see it. I click like on this guy all the time.

Are you a store that sells adorable things? Show me the adorable things. I will click like. And then come spend my money. And my friends might do the same.

I click like on their posts all the time. So I see them.

The moral of the story? Don’t worry abou the other 85-90% of the people who don’t really like you. Make it interesting, make it worth sharing, and people will be interested and they will share. If you can do this, the 10-15% of your fans you reach will be the quality fans who will spread the word about you.