Hiring social media managers is often a knee-jerk reaction to a PR disaster.
It’s a far better idea to get out in front of any bad press before it happens. So, it would be wise to take on a skilled professional to help you steer clear of jarring PR bumps in the road.
Here, we’ll explore some of the most common drivers that initiate the conversation about when to hire a social media manager and some guidance about making this decision for your business.
Using a Social Media Manager to Build a Marketing Strategy
The issue for most small businesses is that it might not always seem that social media is the right place to spend limited time and money.
However, if you have an accomplished social media manager on your team, you could potentially multiply your advertising investments and scale your business to new heights!
Conventional advertising has limitations, so social media is your go-to if you want to shift your marketing to meet your customers in the digital space.
Knowing the right questions to ask a social media manager is crucial. You’ll be able to select the best candidates with the knowledge you need to kick-start a successful marketing strategy.
Reasons to Hire a Social Media Manager Today
One of the frequent reasons an entrepreneur or business owner leaps to hire a social media manager is that they recognize the lack of scope to engage with their customers.
There is a lot more to social media than posting a few decent images every few days, including:
- Leveraging tools like hashtags and brand collaborations.
- Using the correct terminology and tone to connect.
- Maximizing advertising visibility with highly focused targeting.
- Cross-posting across socials to boost brand awareness.
- Linking your socials back to your website for enhanced SEO performance.
If you have social media accounts and aren’t handling any of these elements, it’s time to get an experienced manager.
Let’s look at some of the other signs your business would benefit from social media expertise.
Lack of Time to Create Quality Content
Running a business takes time, and if you’re struggling to focus on managerial responsibilities and can’t build the capacity to deal with social media, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks.
Simply having a social media account isn’t enough to make it successful. Platforms need constant engagements, fresh content, and outreach to build a responsive audience.
Social media, done right, is a full-time job, so if you can’t allocate sufficient time to share regular posts, track your ads, and produce quality content, it’s worth taking on a social media professional.
The Need to Drive Higher Engagement Metrics
Whichever socials you use, the aim is to produce results!
Low engagement (considered anything below ten percent) means something isn’t right – whether that’s the type of content, UX, or responsiveness.
Trying to figure out what isn’t working is like looking for a needle in a haystack if you aren’t fluent in social media algorithms, so deferring the task to a social media specialist will identify the issue (and solve it) faster.
Building a Strong Brand Voice and Personality
Writing social media posts probably doesn’t look that hard. However, poor quality writing is a death knell, regardless of how incredible your visuals are.
Social media text captions should be:
- Consistent across every platform, post, and story.
- Reflect your branding, style, and character.
- Demonstrate the business values that resonate with your customer.
- Be word-perfect in spelling and grammar.
Having a social media manager takes the strain from creating attention-grabbing text and allows your company to build a unique brand voice.
Using Expert Skills to Improve Brand Visibility
There are countless tools available to monitor your social media performance, evaluate engagement levels, and pinpoint areas of improvement.
While you can post from any mobile or tablet, using those resources is fundamental to social media success.
A social media manager will have a range of things at their fingertips, such as hashtag generators, post-scheduling software, and trend trackers.
It’s significantly cheaper to invest in a social media manager with access to everything they need to boost your social performance than investing in software or tools that can be difficult to utilize fully.
Expanding Business Socials Across New Platforms
Finally, let’s remember that there are multiple social media platforms!
Trying to juggle the management of each account on your own can be difficult, and missing out on a huge trend or a platform where your customers are flocking might mean falling behind the pack.
A social media manager can evaluate which socials your customers use, where you need to focus your brand presence, and which platforms aren’t worth your investment.
Best practice varies across each platform, with different rules for advertising, branded content, and optimization guidelines, so using a social media manager will help your business stay on top, no matter how quickly the trends change.