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No smoke and mirrors. No jargon. Just honest marketing that works. We believe the best work happens when we collaborate.
No smoke and mirrors. No jargon. Just honest marketing that works. We believe the best work happens when we collaborate.
We often get asked, “Isn’t social media management just posting out content?” The simple answer is no. We like to think of social media as a ‘shop window’ or ‘business card’, as we mention in our previous blog ‘Bringing an offline business, online’.
Social Media management has many elements, many more than just ‘posting content’. Nowadays it is an expectation that businesses, however big or small, are on some form of social media.
Start by looking at the strengths and weaknesses of your brand/business. Are you better suited for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram, for example; they all have certain demographics and ‘vibes’. Do you have the time or resources to be on multiple social channels, or would you be better to focus on one? Are your customers likely to be on a certain platform more than others?
This is where social media management comes in, it is about strategy and planning, then trialling various methods. Today we’re going to give you some information and insight into social media management.
We’ve already spoken about this briefly above, and one of the first things of social media management is where you pick the right platforms for your brand.
For example, let’s say you’re a car mechanic and you decide to set up a page on LinkedIn. Are you targeting the right audience? Are people on LinkedIn going to be asking “where can I fix my car?” This type of business may be better placed to focus on Facebook, where you may gain more success. Facebook has a great review system, with the ability for customers to tag your page; and the ability to post in local groups.
Here is a brief description of each social network and how they might be the correct platform for your brand:
Facebook – This is easily the largest social networking site in the world (more than two billion people using it every month and that’s almost a third of the world’s population) and one of the most widely used across all age groups. Apart from the ability to network with friends and relatives, you can also access different Facebook apps to sell online and you can even market or promote your business, brand and products by using paid Facebook ads. Multiple industries rely on Facebook for marketing their business, including financial services, e-commerce, retail, gaming, entertainment, media, technology, consumer goods, and automotive businesses etc.
While the Facebook News Feed increasingly suppresses business posts, there are still ways to bolster engagement without investing in ads. Building an audience through quality content and customer engagement can create brand advocates for your business and generate (free) word of mouth.
Instagram – Instagram was launched as a unique social networking platform that was completely based on sharing photos and videos. Instagram has really grown in popularity, and is a smorgasbord of eye-catching visuals and inspiring creativity. Instagram is great for product-based businesses and influencers; and now offers advertising and the ability to sell products.
It has also recently launched IGTV for longer-form videos.As a brand, you can have an Instagram business profile, which will provide you with rich analytics of your profile and posts.
Twitter – Twitter is a platform that divides opinion. It is fast and furious and requires a lot of time-commitment, as it has a strong emphasis on real-time information — things that are happening right now. If your business is related to entertainment, sports, politics, or marketing, you could generate great engagement on Twitter.
According to advertisers on Twitter, more than 80 percent of social customer service requests happen on Twitter. So do be wary that Twitter can become an avenue for people to assume they have a direct line to you.
Ok, so you’ve decided on your social media platform/s that is the most suitable for your brand and time/budget. Now it’s time to create a social media strategy. A social media strategy is who you plan to target, how, and pretty much everything that you plan to do and your goals for your social media. It’s always advisable to set up a goal for your social media management, and use this as a yard-stick to know if you’re having any success.
Do make sure you are realistic and patient at first (unless you are throwing considerable amounts of money at short promotion). Many strategies need a period of time to acquire information and data to establish what is and isn’t working for your brand.
Here are some examples of objectives and goals…
Objective: “I want more sales and leads…”
Social media goal: Conversions.
Metrics: Newsletter sign-ups, form submissions & online purchases.
Objective: “I want to grow my brand.”
Social media goal: Create awareness of brand.
Metrics: Increased likes & followers on business page.
Having a social media strategy is key to successful social media management.
This is the most important and significant part of social media management; creating and scheduling your content. This process begins when you decide on the ‘personality’ (so to speak) of your brand/business. It’s then about coming up with ideas and posts (depending on your chosen platforms), creating a graphic/image/video, writing the copy, and then scheduling the content.
Creating and scheduling content is the most difficult aspect of social media management, and it takes time to do it well. It requires you to have an in-depth understanding of your target audience, and making sure the content you post out is consistent with your brand. If your brand colours are grey and blue, try to stick to them with any artwork; avoid using red, or yellow, as it just creates confusion.
When it comes to creating and scheduling content stick to the mantra. QUALITY AND CONSISTENCY.
Note: We find a lot of people begin social media with good intentions. They assume it is a quick and easy process, but creating and scheduling quality content, consistently is tough; especially when you’re running a business. A successful social media strategy requires research into your audience, analysing data, creating engaging content and engaging with customers!
Advertising campaigns over the past few years have become more relevant and important. This is due to social media companies that have changed their algorithms, multiple times, thus making it harder for your organic brand content to feature on user’s newsfeeds.
This is where advertising campaigns come into play and are a huge part of social media management. Advertising campaigns can be used to increase your sales and generate more leads, by targeting a new audience with specific parameters such as demographic, interests, and location.
Your business could have a discount code or a downloadable PDF, for example. These type of offerings would be great to advertise on social media. If you’ve also set up the correct analytics, you will be able to see which advertising campaign has been successful, or where they haven’t performed as well; leading to tweaks of your advertising campaigns.
Last but not least, tracking performance is another vital cog in the social media management machine. Tracking performance is essential for you to see which social media platforms are serving you well and which content is working best; or not.
Once you have this information you will be able to adjust your social media strategy and content accordingly. You must track your social media performance so you can understand your ROI (return on investment).
Now you know more about Social Media management, and it is much more than just content posting, you might ask yourself: “should I invest in social media management services?” Perhaps you simply don’t have the time to commit to developing your social presence, but you can see how crucial it is.
Social Media management services can offer you many advantages compared to managing in-house, such as:
If you’re interested in our social media management services feel free to send us a message, or you can email us at info@bluecheesedigital.com for a FREE quotation!