Community management
The post is the start of the conversation, not the end.
Publishing is the easy half of social media. What happens afterwards, in the comments, the direct messages and the places you are mentioned, is where a follower becomes an enquiry or a complaint becomes public. Community management is the work of answering all of that in your voice, with a written policy for what gets answered, hidden, reported or handed to you.
What does community management on social media involve?
Everything that arrives after a post is published: replying to comments, answering direct messages, responding when the business is mentioned or tagged, and moderating what other people leave on your profiles. It runs to a written policy that says what is answered in public, what is taken private, what is hidden, what is reported to the platform and what is escalated to the business.
It also includes recognising an enquiry when it arrives as a message and routing it to the same place calls and web forms go, so it is followed up and counted like every other lead.
Two things sit outside it. Review replies belong to review management, which has its own rules. And anything only the business can know, from whether a symptom needs an appointment to what a specific job will cost, is escalated rather than guessed.
Written and maintained by the VIS Mountain team. Last reviewed . The sources behind it are listed below.
What actually comes back
A post that gets a question in the comments and no answer has told every reader something. It has told them the page is a noticeboard, and that the business behind it is not listening.
What comes back is more varied than most owners expect. A genuine question about price or availability. A message asking whether you are open on Saturday. A former customer saying thank you. A complaint, in public, written in anger. A tag from a local group asking for recommendations. Spam, bots, and the occasional person who is simply unwell.
Each of those needs a different response and some need none at all. Without a policy, whoever sees it first decides, which is how a receptionist ends up arguing with a stranger under a post about opening hours.
Community management is the policy plus the people to apply it: somebody reading everything that arrives, replying in the voice the business has agreed, moving enquiries into the system that holds the other enquiries, and handing you the things only you can answer.
How it is set up and run
The setup is most of the work. Once the policy and the routing exist, the day to day is reading and replying.
Find every door
Every place a person can reach the business through social media: Facebook page messages and comments, Instagram direct messages, comments and tags, LinkedIn page messages, mentions in local groups, and the message requests folder nobody has opened. Most businesses have at least one door that opens onto a personal profile only one person can see.
Write the moderation policy
A short document that says what is answered in public, what is answered privately, what is hidden, what is reported and what goes to you. It also says what is never done: no arguing, no deleting criticism that breaks no rule, and no reply that confirms anything about an individual in a regulated category.
Put the doors in one place
Meta's Business Suite Inbox, for example, lets a business read and reply to messages from Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp and respond to Facebook and Instagram comments from one screen, with labels, notes and conversations assigned to a named person. That is what makes a shared inbox possible instead of three apps on three phones.
- Every conversation has an owner, so nothing waits for whoever notices
- Labels for enquiry, complaint, spam and question, so the month can be reviewed
- Automated greetings and away messages that say what happens next, without promising when
See the remaining steps: How it is set up and runHide the remaining steps: How it is set up and run
Build the reply library
The questions that arrive every week, answered once in the brand voice and kept where the person replying can find them. Hours, parking, what to bring, whether you take a particular insurer, how to book. Written as a person would say it, not as a policy reads.
Route enquiries into the lead system
A message asking for a price or an appointment is a lead. It is logged in the same place as the calls and the web forms, tagged with its source, and picked up by the same follow-up, so a message is never the lead that got lost because it lived in an app.
Set the escalation path
Named people for the things only the business can answer, with a way to reach them that is not another message. Clinical or legal questions, complaints about a specific job, staff matters, and anything about a named person all go this way.
Review the month
What people asked, what they complained about, which replies worked and which questions the website should have answered. It is the cheapest content research available and it feeds straight back into what gets posted next.
The last step is where much of the value is. Ten real questions from real customers are a better editorial calendar than any brainstorm.
What the policy says to do
This is the shape of the document. Yours will be shorter and specific to your business.
| Item | When | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Answer in public | The answer helps the next reader too | Are you open Saturday? Do you do this for children? |
| Answer privately | The answer involves the person's own situation | A price for their job, a booking, anything with their details |
| Acknowledge, then take private | A complaint, or anything heated | A public reply that invites them to message or call, then the real conversation |
| Hide | Spam, scams, links to nothing, and abuse aimed at other commenters | A bot pushing a crypto scheme under your post |
| Report | Content that breaks the platform's own rules | Harassment, hateful conduct, impersonation, privacy violations |
| Escalate to you | Only the business can answer it | Anything clinical or legal, a complaint about a specific job, a named staff member |
Criticism that breaks no rule is not hidden. Hiding it is visible to the person who wrote it, and a page that only shows praise reads as one.
A message is one more door into the same inbox
The drawing shows four sources. A social message is a fifth, and it has to land in the same list as the other four.
What we cannot answer for you
These are handed to a named person in the business every time, because a confident wrong answer in public is worse than a short delay.
- Whether a symptom, a lump, a pain or a reaction needs an appointment, or anything else that reads as clinical advice.
- Anything that could be read as legal advice, or as creating a client relationship.
- A price that depends on the specifics of the job, the mouth, the roof or the case.
- Whether you can fit somebody in today, unless the diary is in a system we can see.
- A complaint about a specific job, a specific visit or a specific member of staff.
See the full checklist: What we cannot answer for youHide the full checklist: What we cannot answer for you
- Anything that names or identifies an individual, including an answer to a question a family member asks about them.
- Whether you take a particular insurer or plan, until you have written the answer down for the reply library.
- A question from a journalist, a regulator, an attorney or a competitor.
The public reply in the meantime is short and honest: thank you, we will come back to you directly. It does not guess.
Handling a complaint in public without making it worse
A public complaint is read by far more people than the person who wrote it, and the reply is written for them. It acknowledges the complaint in plain words, does not dispute it in public, and offers a direct route to sort it out: a number to call or a message to send. The real conversation then happens privately, with the person in the business who can fix it.
What makes it worse is predictable. Arguing the facts in the thread. Explaining what really happened, which in healthcare is a privacy breach and everywhere else is a public argument with a customer. Deleting the comment, which turns one complaint into a screenshot. A templated apology that could have been sent to anyone.
Read the full breakdown: Handling a complaint in public without making it worseHide the full breakdown: Handling a complaint in public without making it worse
What is hidden or reported is decided by the policy and the platform's rules, not by how the comment made anyone feel. Meta's Community Standards set out what is not allowed across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads, including bullying and harassment, hateful conduct, spam and privacy violations, and that is the line for a report. A rude but genuine complaint is on the other side of it and is answered.
Review replies are a different job with their own rules, and they belong to review management rather than here. The same principles apply, and in healthcare so does the prohibition on confirming that anyone is a patient.
The rules, and the healthcare rule in particular
In healthcare a reply must never confirm that somebody is a patient, and that includes replying to their own public post about their own visit. The natural response, which is to explain what happened, is exactly the one that is prohibited. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights has settled with practices for precisely this: a dental practice paid the regulator to resolve disclosures of patient information made in response to online reviews on social media, which the regulator describes plainly as illegal under HIPAA, and a psychiatric practice settled over disclosing four patients' information in replies to negative reviews. The compliant reply acknowledges the comment in general terms and invites the person to make contact directly, and it is agreed in writing before anybody needs it.
The privacy rule also constrains what a practice may say to its own patients through social messaging, and the practice remains responsible for its own compliance. We build to the stricter reading and point to the Department's guidance for the rules themselves rather than interpreting them for you.
Read the full breakdown: The rules, and the healthcare rule in particularHide the full breakdown: The rules, and the healthcare rule in particular
The Federal Trade Commission's endorsement guidance reaches comments too. Staff and anybody working for the business who praise it in a comment or a review should disclose the relationship, and the Commission is explicit that listing an employer on a profile is not enough. Nobody managing your community should ever post as a customer, and fake engagement breaks the platforms' own rules as well.
One more rule is ours. We will not publish a response time or promise hours of coverage, on this page or in an automated greeting, because a promise written into a bot is broken the first busy afternoon. What is agreed is who owns the inbox and what happens when they are not there.
What you have to supply, and how it is measured
Access to every door, including the ones on personal profiles that currently receive business messages. The answers to the recurring questions, written or dictated once so the reply library is true. A named person for each kind of escalation, and a genuine willingness to answer, because an escalation that sits unanswered is a public silence.
This is the wrong service for a business with no posts and no followers, where there is nothing yet to manage, and for one that wants every critical comment removed, which we will not do. It is also the wrong service if nobody inside the business will take an escalation.
Read the full breakdown: What you have to supply, and how it is measuredHide the full breakdown: What you have to supply, and how it is measured
It is measured by what it turns into. Messages that became logged enquiries, and enquiries that became bookings, counted in the same system as the calls and forms. Complaints resolved privately rather than escalating in public. The share of questions the reply library could answer, which should rise as the website catches up. Follower counts and comment volume are not on the list.
We do not publish a price for this piece of work on its own, because the right scope depends on what already exists. What is published is the bundle pricing: 2,400, 3,600 or 4,800 dollars a month depending on which channels are running. You can read the full breakdown on the pricing page, and you will get an exact number in writing before anything starts.
How this connects to the rest
This is the second half of social media management. Social content production and the platform work on Facebook marketing, Instagram marketing and LinkedIn marketing decide what goes out. This page is what happens to everything that comes back.
The routing depends on CRM implementation, because a message can only join the other enquiries if there is one place they all land, and on marketing automation for the follow-up that runs once it has.
Review management is the sibling with the closest rules and a separate job. The voice both use comes from brand messaging, which is where the reply wording and the words the business never uses are written down.
And where a message arrives from a paid post, it is paid social or Meta ads that produced it, which is one more reason the source tag matters.
Open the message requests folder.
On each of your profiles, look at the messages and comments from the last month that nobody answered. Send us the count and what they asked, and we will tell you what a policy and a shared inbox would have done with them.
Straight answers.
Is this the same as replying to reviews?
No. Reviews sit on platforms with their own policies and their own rules on asking, responding and disputing, and that work belongs to review management.
Community management covers comments, direct messages, mentions and tags on social profiles. The voice is the same and, in healthcare, so is the rule against confirming that anyone is a patient.
Will you reply as us?
Yes, in the voice and the wording the business has agreed, from the business's own accounts. Nobody on our side ever posts as a customer.
Anything that needs the business's own knowledge is escalated to a named person rather than answered on their behalf.
Should we delete negative comments?
Not if they break no rule. The person notices, other readers notice a page that only shows praise, and a deleted complaint tends to come back as a screenshot somewhere you cannot moderate.
Spam, scams, abuse and anything that breaks the platform's rules is hidden or reported under the policy. A rude but genuine complaint is acknowledged and taken private.
How quickly will messages be answered?
We do not publish a response time and we will not write one into an automated greeting, because a promise a bot makes on a quiet Tuesday is broken on a busy Friday.
What is agreed in writing is who owns the inbox, what the automated acknowledgement says, and what happens to anything that needs the business itself.
What about messages that are really enquiries?
They are logged in the same place as calls and web forms, tagged as coming from social, and followed up by the same sequence. A message asking for a price is a lead and is treated as one.
That is also how the channel gets measured: enquiries that became bookings, counted alongside everything else, rather than likes.
Can you handle medical questions in the comments?
No, and neither should anyone who is not the clinician. Anything that reads as clinical advice is escalated, and the public reply invites the person to contact the practice directly.
The reply never confirms that the person is a patient, even when they say so themselves. That is the rule the regulator has enforced, and the practice remains responsible for its own compliance.
Where this comes from.
Primary documentation and published research behind the guidance on this page.
- About Inbox in Meta Business Suite, Meta Help Center (opens in a new tab)Messages and comments from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in one place, with labels, notes and assignment.
- Community Standards, Meta Transparency Center (opens in a new tab)What is and is not allowed on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads, and so what can be reported.
- Settlement with a dental practice over disclosures in response to online reviews, HHS Office for Civil Rights (opens in a new tab)Replying to reviews on social media with patient information is illegal under HIPAA, in the regulator's own words.
- Resolution agreement with Manasa Health Center over disclosures in response to negative reviews, HHS Office for Civil Rights (opens in a new tab)Four patients' information disclosed in replies to reviews, and the corrective action plan that followed.
- HIPAA and marketing, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (opens in a new tab)
- The FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking (opens in a new tab)
Talk to the team
A short call, a look at how the business currently shows up, and a straight answer on what we would do first.