A Social Media Manager does more than hang on Facebook, tweet once or twice a day and post beautiful photos on Instagram.
Many people think that you just hang out on social media and get paid for it. How hard can it be?
No, it’s not that easy! Managing social media for a brand is not an easy task.
Social Media Managers must juggle lots of different things: maintain a presence on social media, find interesting content to share, be creative in content creation, make sure these things are in sync with the marketing department and product team, develop relationships with the audience, be excellent listeners and the list can be made even longer.
So with a million things you need to focus on during the day, some of them will surely be overlooked. Here are a few important things you should not overlook.
6 Things You Should Do In Your Social Media Marketing:
Contents
1. Set clear goals and CPI
The thing is, every little action you do on social media, every tweet you post, every comment you reply to is or should be, part of your overall social media presence and yet another way to promote your brand. Successful brands on social media have a plan.
Before you do anything on social media, you must clearly define your goals in order to create a stable foundation for your social media strategy. Your social media marketing goals should be in line with your overall business strategy, as social media is an important marketing tool with great potential to help you achieve your business goals.
One tip is to set your goals according to the SMART method.
How should you determine if your social media efforts are actually making a difference to your business? What key measures will you use to evaluate social media strategy effectiveness?
2. Keep an eye on competitors
Competition is an integral part of your brand’s environment, so keeping track of your competitors on social media is important.
Keep it under 10, so you don’t get lost in the maze of numbers, platforms, and behaviors.
Social Media presence and audience size: Where are your competitors active? What is their number of followers on each platform and how do you stand up to them? Would it make sense for you to join the platforms you are not active on?
Type of content: What do they usually post on each channel? Is it pictures, video, simple text? How do they use each platform? Is Facebook used for company news, for example, and Twitter for customer support?
Frequency: This is an important point as it can teach you a lot about your content tactics. How often do posts on each platform and what days and times do they seem to prefer?
Average engagement by mail: The average engagement is also something you can look at compared to the size of their audience.
Tone: Do not mix voice with tone. Voice is something unique for a brand, but the tone can be different depending on the platform. For example, Linkedin is for professional services as opposed to Instagram which is usually a bit more relaxed. If you are new to a platform or do not know what tone your posts should have, this can help you.
3. Invest time in a social media calendar
What should I post? I am sure you have asked yourself this question on more than one occasion. If you are active on more than one social platform, you often struggle to create content because it takes up most of your time. So how can you simplify it?
By having a social media calendar! Using a social media calendar not only saves lots of time, but also allows you to plan ahead.
4. Performing a social media audit (Audit)
A social media audit gives you the opportunity to discover what went right or wrong with your social media strategy, assess your current status and how to manage your brand online, avoid mistakes you’ve made and allow you to move on to reach your social media marketing goals.
A social media audit is something that you should do regularly.
Social media auditing helps you get a grip on how you have done so far in meeting your social media marketing goals, if everything you had planned for the beginning of the year works and if you need to rethink some tactics in your social media plan.
But where do you start? Basically, from the top, go as deep as you need to get a better overview of your activity on social media so far.
A few basic steps for a quick review of your social media you can do periodically.
1: List all platforms you are active on with links to your social media profiles.
2: Update all photos and personal information that needs updating.
3: Check certain key metrics such as audience growth, reach, engagement and traffic generated from this platform.
4: Evaluate your presence on each social media platform by checking your CPIs. This process will help you gain some perspective and decide where to focus your efforts from now on.
5. Collaborate with (potential) customers
Managing social media requires engaging and interacting with your audience, as well as building meaningful relationships with current and potential customers and industry influencers.
Spending a few minutes a day asking questions, responding to comments, engaging with your followers and sharing their content can make a big difference.
For a better overview of your brand environment, you should monitor popular hashtags and keywords related to your interests or industry.
6. Educate yourself
Social media is a rapidly changing environment with new trends, tools and platforms that change every day. So keeping up to date with the latest developments in the industry is very important.
