1) Your Community Manager needs to be on call 24/7

OK, maybe not 24/7. You can probably give them a few hours to sleep. But seriously, they need to be getting real-time updates every time someone mentions your brand on Twitter, or in a blog post, or writes a Yelp review, or comments on your Facebook page. By setting up these profiles, you’re sending the message “Here’s a new way to get in touch with us!” Imagine if someone called your business and left a message, and you didn’t get back to them for three days. Or even one day. Do you really think they’re going to give you money?

2) Your Community Manager needs to be empowered to act

Since you found someone who is getting real-time updates from customers about your business, they need to be able to do something about negative situations when they arise. If someone Tweets that they got the wrong order (instead of taking it up with their server), the Community Manager needs to be able to call the on-duty manager and inform them of the situation – and the manager needs to be willing to make it right. If someone writes in a Yelp review that your contractor was drinking in their house instead of installing their new carpet, then you need to listen to your CM when they tell you about it and fire your contractor and apologize to the customer. Your business (especially if you’re in hospitality) already has special circumstances offline where a manager can comp things, or issue a refund, or take other corrective action. The CM needs to be able to do these things online.

3) Your Community Manager needs to be kept up to speed with the business

They need to know what’s new, and what’s changing, as quickly as you do. Raising your prices? They better know that the lampshades that were $10 yesterday are $20 now before they talk about them. They better know that there was a popular band added to the benefit show lineup so they can talk about it. They better know that you’re closing early tomorrow. Otherwise, how are they going to tell your customers?

A version of this article was originally published on beingcheryl.com