Definition: Community management is the work of building and looking after a brand’s audience on social media by replying to comments and messages, moderating conversations and starting discussions, so followers feel heard and keep coming back.
Also called: social media community management, engagement management
Updated October 11, 2026
Response rate = replied messages and comments ÷ all that needed a reply × 100Social media management is the wider job: strategy, content, publishing and reporting. Community management is the part that happens after a post goes live, in the replies and inboxes. Publishing gets attention; community management turns that attention into relationships.
Track response rate (the share of comments and messages that got a reply), median response time, sentiment of replies, and the number of repeat commenters. Comments and shares also feed engagement rate, which is often the first number to move when replies improve.
A café gets 80 comments and messages in a week that need an answer and replies to 68 of them. Response rate = 68 ÷ 80 × 100 = 85%. They set a goal to reply within four hours during opening times.
Social listening is tracking public online conversations about your brand, competitors, products and industry, then analysing them to guide content, product and customer decisions.
Engagement rate is the percentage of people who interacted with a post (liked, commented, shared, saved or clicked) out of the people who saw it or follow the account.
Brand voice is the consistent personality a brand shows in its writing, such as friendly, expert or playful, so that its posts sound like the same company on every platform.
User-generated content (UGC) is any content about a brand made by people outside it, such as customers’ photos, videos, reviews and posts, rather than by the brand itself.
Write once, tailor each version yourself or with optional AI, and schedule to 6 networks from one calendar.