10 Reasons Why You Must Hire a Quality Social Media Manager to Grow Your Business
You have a social media account, everyone does, and you post on it all the time. So you might be thinking to yourself "why do I need to hire a social media manager to post for my business when I could easily do it and save money"? Well, you could technically do it, but I would be remiss if I didn't tell you the many different reasons as to why it is beneficial not only to your time, but to grow your business successfully! There is so much more to social media marketing than just posting. There is a strategy behind social media and why you post, what you post, and when.
And speaking of strategy, this is the difference between someone that posts on social media, and a professional social media manager. When looking for a social media manager for your business either with Social Circle, or with another, always remember that you want quality and that it often comes with extensive and continuous knowledge. Remember in business and in life, you get what you pay for! Continue reading to find out why you need to hire a quality social media manager to grow your business!
1. Strategy
As I mentioned above strategy is key when marketing on social media. Knowing what social media platforms would preform best for your business and your target audience, what metrics to look out for to know what is working and if you are growing on track, images and content to post that would best bring in new customers. These are just some of the things that goes into creating a strong social media strategy.
2. Research
As a social media marketer the things we research to make sure the posts we do for clients is actually pretty intensive, especially when a client first comes onboard. We do research on the clients product or service to obviously make sure we are representing it correctly. We do research on your competitors to see what they are doing and if they are doing something that is resonating or not with their clients that you are doing, or not. Keyword research is important because we need to find out what keywords your customers are typing into Google and now social media platforms to ensure that we are using those keywords appropriately throughout your social profiles. And depending on what platform or platforms you are using, hashtag research. For platforms like Instagram and Twitter hashtags are a great way to bring in potential new customers, but using generic hashtags that have millions of posts won't get you found. Which is why hashtag research based on your followers size is important as well as location based hashtags.
3. Consistency
If you are posting on several different platforms you don't want to post the same content, or at the very least the same content on the same day, at the same time (although, I myself have been guilty of doing that on my own social accounts). But you do want to make sure that if someone were to stumble upon your accounts on different platforms that they would know it was you based on your colors, style, branding, esthetics, and copy. With different content on each account it is more likely that you will get the same follower on different platforms, whereas if you had the same content on each platform there would be no reason or incentive for someone to follow you on your different social accounts. Each platform should be used to target a different audience and therefore if possible change your content to fit your desired audience.
4. Increased Traffic to Website
A social media manager can make sure that the content that is created throughout the different platforms can be dynamic enough to create the desired result. If you want engagement or followers the type of posts will be different than if you wanted to have people come to your website. So if your goal is to get people to your website to purchase then a social media manager can create a post with that outcome in mind.
5. Brand Recognition
As I mentioned above in the consistency topic, having a strong brand presence is key to being recognized among different platforms without looking at a name. For instance there is a chef that I follow on Pinterest; I have followed her for years and love every recipe that she puts out. While scrolling through Facebook one day I saw an image of a dish that looked like it came from her so I clicked on it. Sure enough, it was her recipe that someone else posted. But because she had such a unique way of photographing her finished dishes with the same kinda moody filter over each one, plus the placement of the ingredients throughout the image grid, I was able to pick it out right away. That is an example of an incredible job at creating brand recognition.
6. Engagement
When creating your posts on social media you want to be creating them specifically for your target audience. However, even with the best, most highly targeted post and copy, you still might not get the type of engagement you want. Plus, with the recent algorithm shifts especially in Facebook, organic reach has been pretty low for most people with the majority of engagement coming from paid ads. One thing that is also pretty important to remember is, social media is still social, and most people don't like to be "the first" to comment. Which is why any type of engagement, be if likes, CTR (click through rate either to website or profile), reach, saves, etc are all good metrics to look at holistically. Comments are great, and can really have a huge impact on getting your post seen by more people, but ultimately it depends on the platform on which is actually better for the algorithm. For instance, Instagram favors saves more than comments.
7. Time
Here is one that I feel is super important and fairly obvious. To really create a good social media strategy, research, post, engagement, etc. you are looking at around 15 hours of time per week to get it all done. Do you have that extra 15 hours a week to really spend marketing your business properly on top of running your business and making sure you still have time with family and friends? If you do, get it girl! But I know how much goes into running a business and doing the marketing and I can tell you if I had to deal with products, sales, deliveries, and employees I don't think I would have the time to really invest in marketing. If that is you, then investing in a social media manager might be the best option. And instead of hiring someone to join your staff you can save money by hiring a freelancer, like myself, or a full agency. Although, and I might be a little bias with this opinion, but I think when hiring a freelancer you are going to get a more personal and invested partner because your success is their success. Whereas with a full agency you will have multiple people working on your account that also have dozens of other accounts that they are working on as well so their level of passion and investment might not be as up to par as with a freelancer.
8. Save on Cost
Social Media Marketing is not an Admin task. I would like to really like to drive this point home. I don't know how many times I have had clients reach out to me saying that they have had someone in their office handling their social media and it hasn't gone anywhere. Unless your employee has been trained on social media you're literally throwing your money away. Hear me out... Social Media Managers have been trained in this particular field and if you find a good one, they have continued their training. Personally, I take multiple courses per quarter and am always looking for the newest trends or ways to market my clients effectively. I feel that the way I handle social media marketing could be different than the way another handles it and I am always open to learning about new ways, because maybe someone has a better way. I know that business owners don't have the time to invest in continuous learning for marketing, but I would hope that they are continuously learning about their own industry. So, when you have an employee that doesn't have the time to invest and they are just "winging it" is costing you money. You are paying your employee hourly to do marketing that isn't generating income. My job is to get more eyes and bring customers to your business and hopefully that leads to more sales because your product is amazing and they can't live without it! Social Media Managers will ensure that we are doing our job effectively by using the analytics from your social media and website to make sure that we are actively bring customers over and we are doing our job, you should have a good return on investment.
9. Reputation Management
Social Media Managers aren't just there to post pretty pictures, we also handle any customer mishaps. If someone comes comes onto a post and says something negative we can try to defuse the situation before it escalates. When handling a problem quickly and appropriately it shows your customers that you are invested in them just as much as they are invested in your business. By leaving a negative comment unanswered for a longer period of time it allows your customers to potentially think that you are not responding because they are right, which could cause more issues! A quick response time can diffuse a situation before it escalates into something more.
10. Staying on Trend
Social media moves so quickly that what is trending today might not be trending tomorrow. It is amazing how quickly trends can come alive or die just as fast. While I don't recommend always staying "on trend" for your business, because I am a big believer of individuality and being trendy doesn't always coincide with that. But when there is a trending audio clip or song, or a trending filter or transition that can be used with your brand I would always recommend it as a way of gaining new eyes on your page.
Are you looking to hire a Social Media Manager?
Let's chat! I would love to go over what I can do for your business. Fill out the form below and we can set up a time that works for a free 30 minute call!
