Have you ever contemplated the role social media plays in your overall marketing strategy? If you haven’t, perhaps now is the time to start. After all, 77% of all businesses have an active presence on social media. To stand out among the crowd takes a concerted effort, and is, in essence, a full-time job. Let’s start off by defining what a social media manager is. A social media manager has access to your social media channels, implements a social media strategy, and builds brand awareness over time.
If you’re a small business owner and find yourself pushing things off your “to-do” list (like curating social media content), it might be time to think about outsourcing. Of course, one of your existing employees can oversee your business’ social media presence and check-in from time-to-time, and this is obviously better than nothing; however, the time required to manage, maintain, and execute a productive and effective social media strategy demands the vigilant effort of a full-time social media manager. As much as social media can help your business grow, it can also feel like a HUGE time sucker. Below, I am outlining the top reasons why your business should consider enlisting the help of a social media manager.
Creates a Social Media Strategy
An effective social media strategy isn’t a “post-it and pray it works,” endeavor. Such methods will be extremely ineffective and are a disservice to your brand. Instead, you need a purposeful, synchronized, well-thought-out strategy that will work in conjunction with your other marketing efforts to ensure consistent brand communication and messaging. This, in turn, will encourage more customer engagement and garner more leads. Having no value behind your content is harmful to your online presence. A social media manager will make sure that there is a strategy in place and that your content is meaningful and relevant to your target audience.
Creates Brand Awareness and Authority
Around 95% of online adults, aged 18-34, are most likely to follow a brand via social media. This means that your customers not only prefer you to have an online presence, they expect it! If your business does not currently have a social media presence, then your reputation is already at stake. A social media manager’s goal is to create brand awareness for you and establish your business as an expert in your industry. By creating consistent and valuable content, your followers will begin to trust you and identify your brand. Remember though, it’s vital for your business to be active on social media, not merely present. In fact, many believe it does you more harm to simply exist without managing your social media’s reputation. Thankfully, a social media manager will perform the necessary tasks to establish your business’ social media presence and ensure that this presence is a positive influence for your business by keeping it active.
Keeps You Up-to-Date
Social media is ever-evolving. Keeping up with the trends and changes that come about is, in and of itself, a full-time job. Thankfully, a social media manager is trained to stay well abreast of all the latest trends and keep your social media strategy as cutting-edge as possible. When significant algorithm changes occur or when new trends evolve, social media managers can easily take your social media campaign back to the drawing board and rebuild it from the ground up to keep your business up-to-date and relevant to all consumers.
Social media managers are also well-equipped to come up with fresh, innovative ideas. They can then use these ideas to build your social pages in creative ways. They bring knowledge formed from their experience, which allows them to know ahead of time what will encourage the most interaction and attention on social media and what will be ignored. In turn, this will give your business an edge in the ultra-competitive social media market.
Tracks Marketing Efforts
How can you know whether your social media campaign is effective and serving its desired purpose without someone who understands the metrics and data that reveals this information? A social media manager is specifically trained to track the metrics that matter and then adjust your social media strategy as needed in order to improve specific metrics. This is a vital step because it ensures your business isn’t wasting time and money by focusing on ineffective strategies. A social media manager can help to provide the tangible results that you desire, the manager is familiar and knowledgeable about social media analytics and what they mean. They can analyze the results of your posts (what times to post, engagement, post reach, Etc.)
Let a specialist handle your business’ social media strategy and presence: A professional who is dedicated to improving and maintaining your social media reputation. Thanks to their extensive training, knowledge, and experience, a social media manager is just the professional you want to work in this capacity. After they implement their innovative strategy, you will soon see the improvement was well worth the investment!
Saves Time
A well-orchestrated social media campaign requires active management of each platform upon which your business is present. This includes tasks, such as scheduling posts, responding to messages, engaging with your business’ audience, interacting with customers via comments and likes, tracking metrics, and more. Whew! As a small business owner, you’re wearing many hats in the business. In between answering emails, networking, preparing products to be shipped, you’re expected to magically squeeze in time to SIT and work on social media content. Believe it or not, this problem can be solved. By hiring a social media manager, you will save so much time as they work behind the scenes creating branded content specific to your needs. You simply don’t have the time required to devote to such a hefty responsibility. Plus, keep in mind: Hiring a social media manager will end up costing much less than hiring on another full-time employee to do the job!
A New Way to Generate New Customers
A social media manager will know how to post through paid and organize efforts. It requires a bit of research to understand what your industry thrives on and what content your customers like to see. It may take a few months for your social media manager to identify what strategy works best.
Are you ready to step up your Social Media game and trust a Social Media Manager?
I’d be happy to discuss this with you and craft a strategy that will work for your business!
Contact me!