Today, more than ever before, businesses must use social media management to grow their visibility online and if you’re not using it then there’s plenty of untapped opportunity you’re missing out on. No matter what industry sector you’re involved in, if you’re not on the social media channels or doing your social media properly, you won’t reach the pinnacle of success. This piece will give you some information on what social media management is all about and what you need to be doing to grow your online audience.
What Is Social Media Management?
Social media management relates to managing all of your activity on your social media channels. It doesn’t matter whether your business is online or offline, you do need presence on social media because it has billions of people using it worldwide – and that means your audience are right there, waiting for you to promote your business or brand.
Do You Understand Social Media Management?
While the above is the basics of social media management, understanding how to use it properly can make a huge difference to your bottom line. Essentially, it’s a tool to reach a wider audience and to engage your customers, growing a community around your business or brand. You could use it to display new products, new services, gain customer feedback, to offer customer service, to provide customers with exclusive offers and more. If you’re using social media to promote your business but you’re not getting the engagement you want, then perhaps you’re not doing it properly? It could be that you do it yourself for your business, but if you don’t have time to dedicate to your social media management, then you might be better off finding someone to do it on your behalf.
However, employing a freelancer, an agency or a whole team to do your social media management does cost money. For start-ups and small businesses, the budget might be extraordinarily tight – but there are things you can do to help yourself. More on this later on in this piece.
Understanding Social Media Management
As with anything new or unfamiliar, social media management takes time to get to grips with. If you don’t have time to do it, you might find that it is worth employing someone to do it for you, even on an ad hoc or part-time basis. That frees you up to concentrate on other areas of your business while they spend their time working on growing your online presence.
Big businesses tend to have a marketing team with dedicated social media management specialists or they might employ a social media agency to deal with it on their behalf. Smaller companies might have a consultant or a marketer covering social media but as we said, it is harder for small start-ups or those with a tight budget to employ someone. However, it needs dedication to get it right, so if you can’t afford to employ someone, take advantage of the cheap or free online social media management tools (more later) and promise yourself that you’ll free up an hour a day to concentrate on social media.
As a tip, if you have multiple social media channels but none are working for you, narrow it down to one or two and perfect those. It’s far better to have a couple of social media channels doing a brilliant job for your business than multiple channels that don’t really help at all!
Explaining Social Media Management
Before we move on, it’s worthwhile explaining in a little more detail what social media management is.
Social media management covers all of your activity online through your social networks. However, different social media channels attract different audiences. For example, LinkedIn would work well for you if you are business to business (or B2B). Pinterest attracts a big Baby Boomer audience, TikTok is for age 16- to 25-year-olds primarily whereas Instagram attracts people from 18 to 50. So do your research and make sure that you are using the right social media channels for your audience. Of course, some social media channels have cross over, such as Facebook and Instagram.
Formulating a Strong Social Media Strategy
No doubt you have a business strategy. You also need a social media strategy, and this should cover a period of around 3 months, 6 months or a year. Your strategy will detail everything you’re planning to cover on social media, your posts, creating videos and images, your advertising campaigns, your user engagement and more. Alongside, you will want a social media calendar that shows when you’re going to post and when. Your social media strategy should be fluid and evolve over time so you can add activities and remove activities. Consider it a guideline over the coming months. Additionally, you’ll want to see how well your social media performs and most channels offer free insights. This guide to social media metrics gives you plenty of extra information.
Social Media Management for Small Businesses
Of course you might not have a big enough budget to employ a social media manager but don’t give up! You could always ask a trusted friend or family member who’s good at social media to help you. Or there are certain online tools available that can also give you lots of guidance. Some of these tools for social media management are free whereas others must be paid for. We have provided a list further on in this guide.
Why Social Media is Essential for Business
There’s so much that social media management can do to grow your business online (and offline too). Here are some of the benefits to enjoy with good social media management:
- Setting up your social media profiles doesn’t cost anything.
- You get free insights on most of the channels to track your performance.
- You can monetize your social media, using advertising (which is low-budget) or having shoppable posts (especially on Instagram and Facebook).
- You can engage with your audience and build a community.
- Use social media for customer services, Twitter is excellent for this.
- Using social media gives you access to a bigger audience.
- Optimized profiles on social media give your business kudos.
- You should see results very quickly, when done properly.
Online Tools to Help with Social Media Management
If you are intent on doing your own social media management then using the online social media management tools available will help. Some must be paid for, but others don’t cost a penny. Here is a list of the best online tools:
- This is a paid-for online tool that allows you to schedule posts in advance, to track your social media performance across your channels and you can use it on the go as it’s available on mobile devices as well as desktops.
- This is probably the most well-known social media management tool that has a scheduling feature too and can be used cross-platform. It also gives you more insights and metrics to gauge your performance.
- This tool has a social media calendar feature so you can get started with planning out all of your social media. You can also schedule your posts and track your performance.
The Tasks Performed On Social Media For Business
The following list comprises of some of the tasks that social media management requires:
- Developing your social media calendar.
- Creating a social media strategy.
- Selecting the social networks that apply to your business sector.
- Devising campaigns for social media.
- Creating ad campaigns through pay per click mechanics.
- Researching your audience and developing bigger audiences.
- Engaging with your audience using commentary and through direct messages.
- Creating social media content.
- Converting prospects into paying customers.
The Cost of Social Media Management
If you do your own social media management, the only cost will be your time plus any social media advertising. However, it might mean that you spend a lot of time on social media which means you have less time dealing with your day-to-day.
If you employ a freelancer even on an ad hoc basis, it won’t cost you a lot but it depends on where you’re located. You might want to think about using a freelancer website, you could use someone from another country which might be more cost effective.
Big businesses who use agencies pay upward of $3,000 monthly to manage their social media management and while this is a lot of money, it does reap reward.
Last Words on Social Media Management
Social media management is integral to business success and should be a part of your overall strategy. While you can do it yourself, it takes time to perfect so start with one channel first and get that right before adding another channel. Alternatively, if you find it too hard to add to your task list every day, perhaps trial employing a freelance social media manager to help you gain more visibility online.
