Top 4 Online Community Management Trends to Look Out For in 2022

Today, almost every organization has an online community that supports conversations, engagement, and innovation.

However, to keep the conversations in your online community flowing and ensure that your business benefits from these conversations, you need strategic planning.

That’s where online community management takes the center stage.

Community enthusiasts are quite familiar with the term ‘online community management’. It is the art of curating robust strategies that bring in the desired member engagement and ROI.

But what’s new in the community management arena?

Let’s deep dive into the horoscope of community management and take a look at the predictions for 2022.

1. Focus on Customer Relationship Management: As of now, the focus of online community management is to prevent community conversations from going haywire. It is also focused on creating and implementing strategies that increase community engagement.

But as we enter 2022, the new era of community management will witness a shift from increasing community engagement to managing customer relationships more effectively. Brands will now focus on strengthening their relationships with their customers and community members by understanding their needs and preferences and maintaining regular contact with them.

Brands will be seen using a more humanized tone to understand user personas and cater to their customers more efficiently.

2. The Emergence of Community Management Tools: 2022 will see a rise in the adoption of community management tools. The application of community management tools such as HootSuite, Combin Growth, Qoob Stories, and more, will enable brands to develop robust strategies.

Using these tools, brands will be able to keep a track of all ongoing community activities and the top community contributors. Community managers will be able to unlock the true potential of their community by studying valuable members’ data and curating strategies that turn metrics into ROI.

Another major benefit of using community management tools is that community managers will be able to schedule community posts ahead of time.

3. Use of Augmented Reality (AR) & Location for Community Management: To build future-ready online communities implementation of AR and location will be your best bet. It will enable members to connect together geographically.

Fueled by augmented reality, such communities will empower brands and community managers to connect with their loyal members from anywhere in the world. This will also prove to be a turning point for brands to gamify members’ experiences and attract more members.

For community managers, implementing geolocation features within the community will come across as an opportunity to understand their members’ choices. Based on the region they are in, they can cater to their needs more effectively by offering them something that will keep them hooked to the community.

4. Automation for Community Management: Content/conversation moderation is an important aspect of fostering a positive and user-friendly community environment. And one way of doing that is by using automation and in your online community.

Using tools such as Google Analytics, Bitly, and Buffer, community managers will not have to worry about responding to community posts immediately. They can do so by setting automated replies and keeping the engagement in the community going.

Since the future of communities is to cement stronger connections with the members, community management will immensely benefit from automation. Community managers will be able to analyze data and devise strategies that target their audience’s needs.

With new growth opportunities, 2022 is surely going to be an exciting year for the community space.

It all sums to highlighting your customer’s preferences and how you are fulfilling those needs strategically, all while making it an exceptional community experience for them. With the right strategies and approach, you can toggle through all obstacles and make your online community cutting-edge.

Want to create a stellar community experience for your users? Know more.