Social media management: the why and the what
Okay, so having started a new job in a completely new field I’ve had so many conversations with so many different people about what I am doing and what it is that I actually do everyday. After trying to explain it in the best way I can, I almost always get “wow, you really get paid to sit on Facebook all day then?”. But the truth is, managing social media doesn’t make up my whole work day and doesn’t actually just mean sitting on the platform all day, mindlessly going through the feeds - which I know so many of us are guilty of.
A study carried out by Forbes in 2018 found that there are now 50 million small businesses using Facebook pages to connect with their customers. So that’s proof that businesses now recognise social media is an amazingly helpful tool, not just for marketing, but also to interact with their customers. After all, 71% of consumers who have a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others (source: Ambassador).
Hopefully by giving you those stats, you can begin to understand the importance of social media to a brand and why it needs to be managed by a trained professional.
As a marketing assistant, I run over 7 different business’ social media and each one of those then have at least 2 platforms; for example, the agency I work for (and run social media for) have a Twitter, Facebook and Instagram account. In which I run all 3 simultaneously to ensure the brand’s message and voice is concise and consistent on all 3 at any one time.
Spread that over multiple businesses, all with completely different messages and voices. Many are in completely different trades and fields of work, yet I need to appeal to each of their individual demographics and audiences. Whilst still trying to promote reach growth and engagement simultaneously.
These kind of admin tasks are essential for businesses in this digital age; however, they will often not have time to do it themselves or even understand social media. I mean one of my social media clients is a middle aged financial adviser who runs a successful Finance Brokers - you do the math (...well he probably could!)
Contrary to popular belief, social media management isn’t just creating posts and being active on the social media accounts. There’s a whole other, more complex side to managing social media that most people don’t tend to think about.
The best way I could describe it is, there is a practical and a theory side to social media. The practical side being the side everyone sees; the posts, comments, likes etc. But the theory side being what goes on behind the scenes; the analytic analysing, content curation and scheduling.
If I had to run my clients’ social media accounts without scheduling posts, social media management really would take up all of my time as I would be constantly juggling them all.
But you can’t have a successful business social media account without the theory side of it; much like a paramedic can’t do the practical side of the job without the training - yeah, you could do a cardiac arrest on someone, but you might not do it completely right and therefore might not save that person’s life.
You might put out a post on Facebook, but no one might see it.
So what do you have to do in order to manage social media?
Luckily, there are various software available that allows you to schedule loads of posts for loads of social media accounts. I mean, the software I use has over 20 accounts logged in all of the time so I can post on any of them at any time, or schedule stuff to go up (hmmm so much power).
Scheduling is really crucial to my time management as it basically means that my work is done for a month or so (or how ever long in advance you choose to schedule posts for).
So, that’s scheduling explained in a very vague sense. But what about content curation - what even is that?!
Content curation is the process of collecting, managing and then presenting content and is something that has to be done for all of the social media accounts I manage.
That’s why I find that I am so up to date on some many different topics and fields of work as I am constantly researching them and coming up with exciting ways to then present them to the audience on social media.
You have to be adaptable and able to switch your perspectives on different things in order to give each client a bespoke presence on each social media channel.
A main aim for a business’ social media is to have more exposure for the business itself; which is where analysing analytics comes in.
Analytics are honestly a social media manager’s best friend as it shows them, in numbers, exactly what’s working and what’s not. From there, they can then tailor the content being posted to best optimise the platform and create the most reach and engagement for the business.
Each social media platform is different and thrives with different content types, so I often find myself creating different variations of a post for each platform. Even small differences like capatilising hashtags for Twitter, but not for Instagram is something that can make a huge difference to the success of a post.
Overall; social media management has a lot of hidden things that people may not know about or understand and is often something that gets mistaken for a ‘lazy man’s job’ instead of a job for a professional. Hopefully, with the rise of social media use for business, people will begin to understand the potential social media has. Allowing social media managers to be seen as a professional in their own right.
Spread that over multiple businesses, all with completely different messages and voices. Many are in completely different trades and fields of work, yet I need to appeal to each of their individual demographics and audiences. Whilst still trying to promote reach growth and engagement simultaneously.
These kind of admin tasks are essential for businesses in this digital age; however, they will often not have time to do it themselves or even understand social media. I mean one of my social media clients is a middle aged financial adviser who runs a successful Finance Brokers - you do the math (...well he probably could!)
Contrary to popular belief, social media management isn’t just creating posts and being active on the social media accounts. There’s a whole other, more complex side to managing social media that most people don’t tend to think about.
The best way I could describe it is, there is a practical and a theory side to social media. The practical side being the side everyone sees; the posts, comments, likes etc. But the theory side being what goes on behind the scenes; the analytic analysing, content curation and scheduling.
If I had to run my clients’ social media accounts without scheduling posts, social media management really would take up all of my time as I would be constantly juggling them all.
But you can’t have a successful business social media account without the theory side of it; much like a paramedic can’t do the practical side of the job without the training - yeah, you could do a cardiac arrest on someone, but you might not do it completely right and therefore might not save that person’s life.
You might put out a post on Facebook, but no one might see it.
So what do you have to do in order to manage social media?
Luckily, there are various software available that allows you to schedule loads of posts for loads of social media accounts. I mean, the software I use has over 20 accounts logged in all of the time so I can post on any of them at any time, or schedule stuff to go up (hmmm so much power).
Scheduling is really crucial to my time management as it basically means that my work is done for a month or so (or how ever long in advance you choose to schedule posts for).
So, that’s scheduling explained in a very vague sense. But what about content curation - what even is that?!
Content curation is the process of collecting, managing and then presenting content and is something that has to be done for all of the social media accounts I manage.
That’s why I find that I am so up to date on some many different topics and fields of work as I am constantly researching them and coming up with exciting ways to then present them to the audience on social media.
You have to be adaptable and able to switch your perspectives on different things in order to give each client a bespoke presence on each social media channel.
A main aim for a business’ social media is to have more exposure for the business itself; which is where analysing analytics comes in.
Analytics are honestly a social media manager’s best friend as it shows them, in numbers, exactly what’s working and what’s not. From there, they can then tailor the content being posted to best optimise the platform and create the most reach and engagement for the business.
Each social media platform is different and thrives with different content types, so I often find myself creating different variations of a post for each platform. Even small differences like capatilising hashtags for Twitter, but not for Instagram is something that can make a huge difference to the success of a post.
Overall; social media management has a lot of hidden things that people may not know about or understand and is often something that gets mistaken for a ‘lazy man’s job’ instead of a job for a professional. Hopefully, with the rise of social media use for business, people will begin to understand the potential social media has. Allowing social media managers to be seen as a professional in their own right.
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