The job that starts after you press publish
Social media community management training for the people answering comments, handling complaints and holding a tone of voice under pressure. Moderation, escalation, response times and knowing when not to reply. Half day £1,200, full day £1,800 for up to six people, excluding VAT, at your office or online.
What is social media community management?
Everything that happens in the replies. Answering questions, handling complaints, moderating comments, spotting the one that is about to become a problem, and doing all of it in a consistent voice at speed. It is the least glamorous part of social media and the part most likely to cost or save you a customer.
Most teams have nobody trained for it. The person doing it learned by doing it, usually alone, often on their phone in the evening, with no agreed rules about what to answer, what to hide and when to escalate.
Why does community management go wrong?
Almost always for the same three reasons. There is no agreed response framework, so every comment is a fresh judgement call made under time pressure. There is no escalation route, so the person on the account either sits on something that needed a manager or panics about something routine. And there are no working hours, so responses are inconsistent and the team quietly burns out.
None of that is a personality problem or a skills gap in the usual sense. It is a missing system, and building that system is what the day is for.
What does the training cover?
1. Tone of voice in the replies
Your brand voice adapted for one to one conversation, which is a different problem from writing posts.
2. A response framework
Categories for the comments you actually receive, with agreed responses, so nobody starts from scratch at eight on a Sunday.
3. Complaints
Taking heat out of a thread, when to move to direct messages, and why the public reply matters more than the private resolution.
4. Moderation
Hide, delete, ignore or reply. Where the line sits, and what your policy should say about abuse and trolling.
5. Escalation
What goes to a manager, what goes to legal, what goes to the press office, and how fast. Written down before it is needed.
6. Response times and cover
Realistic hours, weekend cover and what you promise publicly. Overpromising here is a common own goal.
7. Spotting the real problem early
The difference between one angry customer and something that is starting to spread. See crisis and misinformation training.
8. Protecting the person doing it
Community management is emotionally heavy work. Rotation, boundaries and support, because burnout is the usual failure.
What does the day look like?
| Time | Block | What comes out of it |
|---|---|---|
| 09:30 | Your actual inbox, reviewed together | The real categories of comment you receive, not theoretical ones |
| 10:30 | Tone of voice for replies | A written voice guide for conversation, with examples |
| 11:30 | Building the response framework | Agreed responses for your top ten comment types |
| 13:30 | Complaints and difficult threads | Live practice on real examples from your own channels |
| 14:45 | Moderation and escalation | A one page escalation route with names and timings |
| 15:45 | Hours, cover and wellbeing | A rota that people can actually sustain |
Half days keep the inbox review, the response framework and escalation, which is the combination that removes most of the daily guesswork.
Should you reply to every comment?
No, and believing you should is one of the more damaging assumptions in this job. Some comments want a reply. Some want acknowledgement and nothing more. Some are better answered by another customer, which is what a real community does. And a few are trying to provoke a response, where replying is the mistake.
What matters is that the decision is made against an agreed framework rather than by mood and available time. Teams that write those rules down reply faster, more consistently, and considerably less anxiously.
Who runs the day?
I am Chris Norton and I run most of these sessions myself. I founded Prohibition, the PR, social and content agency behind this site, I have worked in public relations for more than twenty years, and I have been running training since 2009. I co-authored Share This Too, the social media handbook published by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
The agency runs community management for client accounts every day, including the accounts that get difficult. The examples on the day are threads we have handled rather than tidy hypotheticals, which includes the ones where we got the first reply wrong.
Who is it for?
The person on the account
Whoever is actually answering. Often junior, often alone, usually never trained for it.
Customer service teams
Where social has landed with the contact centre and the tone does not translate. See customer service training.
Comms and marketing managers
Who own the risk, need an escalation route, and want to stop making judgement calls at weekends.
Community management questions we get asked
What is community management training?
Training for the people handling replies, comments and messages on social accounts. It covers tone of voice in conversation, a response framework for the comments you actually receive, complaint handling, moderation, escalation and realistic response times. It is about the replies rather than the posts.
How much does community management training cost?
Half day £1,200 and full day £1,800 for up to six people, excluding VAT, priced by the group. Around £200 to £300 a head, delivered at your office or online.
Is this the same as social media management?
No. Social media management is planning and publishing. Community management is everything that happens afterwards in the replies. Plenty of people do both jobs, but they need different skills and different rules.
Do we need a written moderation policy?
Yes, and most organisations have either nothing or something written by legal that nobody can apply. We build a usable one on the day from the comments you actually receive.
How fast should we respond on social media?
Faster than you probably manage and slower than the internet claims. What matters more is publishing hours you can genuinely keep and meeting them, rather than promising an hour and delivering a day.
What do we do about trolls and abuse?
Have the rule agreed before it happens. Hide, ignore, reply or report, decided by category rather than by mood, and never by the person who is upset at the time.
Can you train a customer service team rather than marketing?
Yes, and it is a common booking. The training tilts towards tone and platform behaviour, because service teams usually have the process discipline already and struggle with the public nature of it.
Do you cover AI for handling replies?
Yes, honestly. Drafting suggested replies is useful. Automated replies to complaints are a fast way to make something worse. See AI for social media content.
How many people should attend?
Six or fewer, and ideally everyone who touches the inbox including the people who cover weekends. Consistency is the whole point, so training half the rota defeats it.
Bring us your inbox and your worst thread
Half day £1,200, full day £1,800, up to six people, excluding VAT. Delivered UK wide or online.
Part of every social media course we run, delivered UK wide or online. Last reviewed August 2026.
