By now, it is clear how beneficial social media can be toward your marketing efforts. There are plenty of social media management tools out there to help make the job easier, but it can still be overwhelming to manage social media effectively. In addition to a strategy, you need to have to resources to properly execute your social media plan. This is why a social media manager, sometimes called a community manager, is vital to your business.
Social media for marketing involves much more than simply posting content. You will most likely need more than one person to properly manage your social media presence. If you do want a role (or roles) like this it, is important to know what to look for in a social media manager. Here are a few things to keep in mind when looking for a social media manager:
1. An understanding of your business
This person will be representing your online reputation,therefore, they need to have a solid understanding of your business. Your social media manager(s) should be able to speak on behalf of your company in a natural way. Ideally it should seem as if their posts on social media were coming directly from the owner of the company.
2. A customer service mindset
It might seem strange to think that social media involves customer service, but that is one of the most important aspects of managing social media. Your social media manager needs to be able to handle a disgruntled customer who reaches out to you via social media. Their responses need to be timely and polite as well as informative.
3. Experience using social media for business
Nowadays, most people have experience using social media. However the ability to use social media does not translate to using it on behalf of a business. A social media manager needs to know which channels are best for your business and the most effective way to utilize that platform to benefit your business.
4. Writing skills
In addition to experience using social media, your social media manager should have a strong writing ability. Your social media manager(s) will need to be able draft blogs, posts, tweets, hashtags, etc. Their writing will need to be grammatically correct as well as engaging.
5. Attention to detail
Each social media platform requires a different approach. In addition to writing status updates and blogs (that all include your keywords), your social media manager needs to be able to measure their effectiveness through analytics. Most social media platforms offer their own insights which means there is even more data for your social media manager to review. Statistics need to be reviewed regularly in order to measure the success of your social media strategy.
6. A digital marketing background
As I mentioned above, it is important for your social media manager to have experience using social media for business. They should also have a background in digital marketing. Most social media managers have to understand what goes into blogging and keyword optimization. Social media managers sometimes need to create graphics for posts which means they should have some understanding of graphic design as well. These skills are not a must but should be taken into consideration when trying to find a social media manager.
Social media management takes more work than most people realize. So make sure whoever you do choose to represent you is prepared for the challenge.
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