Image source
What Is Social Media Management?
Social media management is the process that involves creating, scheduling, monitoring, and engaging with a specific audience that interacts with optimized content that's posted on multiple social media platforms.
The interchange of communication with a target audience happens across multiple social channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest.
In this article, we will answer the following questions:
1. What Is Social Media Management?
2. Who Is Your Target Audience?
3. What Does A Social Media Manager Do?
4. How Much Does A Social Media Manager Make?
5. What Social Media Channels Should You Choose?
6. What Is Included In Social Media Management?
7. How Does Social Media Management Benefit Your Business?
8. How Much Does It Cost To Outsource Social Media Management?
9. Why You Need To Hire Us To Manage Your Social Media.
Let's get started.
#1. What Is Social Media Management?
We've already defined social media management. But how do understand it, what's your definition?
The reason why am asking that question is that many people still have an elementary understanding of what social media management involves.
For instance, when they think of it, they can see a smart young high school kid who posts on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat.
Social media management is more than just posting content to a company’s social media profiles.
Having said that:
Posting on multiple social media channels is a necessary and elementary first step.
It also includes interacting with your target audience, attracting, converting, and delighting them.
Such targeted and optimized postings include content like text, images, infographics, videos, GIFs, and well-crafted and executed campaigns that boost reach and visibility.
But don't miss this point:
No matter how you slice social media, an effective strategy uses social media platforms to build awareness, generate leads and sales.
But how are you sure that the social media management strategy you've chosen is the best for your brand?
But first:
#.2 Who Is Your Target Audience?
What do you know about your target audience or buyer personas?
According to HubSpot, “Buyer personas (sometimes referred to as marketing personas) are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers”.
In other words, a buyer persona represents your target audience – that group of people you want to reach with your goods or services.
If you understand the group of people you're laser-focusing on, it makes it simply easy to appreciate their pain points, needs, behaviors, and concerns.
Additionally, buyer personas help you to focus on their values and challenges so that you or the agency can deliver the solution that makes them happy.
Moreover, an effective buyer persona helps you understand the most important challenges, needs, and desires of your target audience.
From what you know about your target audience, you can easily produce social media content that is tailored to them.
A social media manager mages all those tasks and more.
Now:
#3. What Does A Social Media Manager Do?
Image source
A social media manager represents a brand across multiple social media platforms as the sole voice of the brand.
This manager is trusted with monitoring, executing, filtering, and measuring the social media presence of a product, service, brand, corporation, or even individuals. Some people refer to a social media manager as “a community manager” (though their roles are different).
Besides, a social media manager is in charge of responding to comments and questions posted on social media.
Generally speaking, the social media manager is also the person tasked with developing social media strategies and campaigns.
What does a social media manager do?
What a social media manager does vary from company to company.
However, they strive to customize strategies for every client based on individual needs.
As they customize the tasks, they take into consideration factors such as the client’s goals and reasons for being on social media. They also consider the buyer personas and the identity of their brand.
Expectations of a social media manager
Effective social media managers stay up to date with all of the latest relevant content that’s posted on all the social media channels that she's managing.
She sifts through appropriate news feeds for epic content to curate and share.
Once she finds shareable content, she puts it in the editorial calendar to be posted at specific times during the day.
Social media managers keep informed on keywords and trending topics. They use the insight gained as material for potential blog posts. (Read more about a social media manager here)
#4. How Much Does A Social Media Manager Make?
Image source
Are you interested in hiring a social media management manager for your agency or marketing team?
Do you want to know how much social media managers make in the US?
As you would expect, the pay is lower in many other countries.
But before you decide how much you're willing to pay your social media manager, here are essential questions you need to address:
What's a competitive salary for the role?
How much extra should I pay for the experience?
Does the location of the job matter?
With these questions answered, you'll be able to budget accordingly and attract the best talent for the role.
In the US, there's a slightly different outlook. The average salary is $45K per year, ranging from $31,653 to $74,450.
What social media platforms are your audience?
#5. What Social Media Channels Should You Choose?
Image source
Choosing the best social media channels that meet your marketing goals is one of the most important decisions to make as you move forward with your marketing.
As you already know, there are tons of social media networks to choose from and it can be challenging to choose one that meets your marketing goals.
And that's because there are social media platforms for almost everything and everyone.
There are social platforms for people with shared interests, similar hobbies, comparable demographics, and a lot more.
In other words, there are so many social media networks that there is no way you can have a presence on all of them.
But before you decide which social media channels to be on, you have to define your marketing goals and then create your buyer personas.
With the insight you gain from your buyer personas, you'll be able to tell which social media channels your target audience spends their time on.
Here’s a brief overview of the most active social media platforms to consider:
Facebook has 2.23 Billion MAUs
(MAUs - Monthly Active Users, and MUVs stands for Monthly Unique Visitors.)
Facebook is a dominant, mean, social media beast.
It is easily an unstoppable juggernaut in its niche. It boasts of more than two billion active users every month.
When you think about it, that’s almost a third of the world’s population!
Facebook has more than 65 million businesses using its Pages and more than six million advertisers that are actively promoting their business on its network.
So, if your business wants to reach a massive audience, Facebook is an amazing social media platform to start with.
Read how much outsourced Facebook Management costs here.
Instagram has 1 Billion MAUs
Instagram is a social media channel for sharing photos, videos, stories, and live videos.
The genius of this app is that it combines the best parts of Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat into one amazing social media platform.
You can do a lot with this app.
For instance, you can add pictures to your Instagram stories, tag your friends in photos or add locations.
Just like many other apps out there, you can (DM) message your connections directly as well as stay in touch with your friends and family.
As if those were not enough activities on that platform, recently it launched IGTV for longer-form videos.
Image source
And if you're a business or brand, you can have an Instagram business profile.
With it, you get rich analytics of your activities and the ability to schedule Instagram posts using third-party tools.
So if your business sells products or offers services that are visual-focused, then Instagram was designed with you in mind.
Read how much outsourced Instagram Management costs here.
Twitter has 335 Million MAUs
Twitter is a social media site for real-time information like news, entertainment, sports, politics, and more.
For instance, one of the defining moments in Twitter history is when Janis Krums tweeted the image of a plane that landed in the Hudson River.
He was nearby on the ferry to pick the passengers up.
Image source
Twitter allows just 280 characters in a tweet.
From a purely marketing perspective, you have to love their immense user commitment to brand awareness.
For instance, many marketers consider Twitter’s ability to respond immediately to any customer service issues as their edge.
People are religiously active on Twitter.
As a marketer, it is a great platform for you to target a laser-focused and dedicated audience.
You know as well as I do, that this group is ready and eager to engage with your brand or your competitors.
So, what are going to do?
But keep this in mind:
Twitter is a social channel that makes it easy for people to find trending topics of their liking to join.
Once you join, you have to be active and without being spammy, contribute positively to the conversation.
With time, you would be able to share your brand's content with influencers and people who see you as helpful, human, and holistic.
Read how much outsourced Twitter Marketing costs here.
LinkedIn has 294 Million MAUs
Don't let the number fool you.
Image source
LinkedIn is a professional platform for professionals.
You noticed that I did not call it a social media platform.
This is why:
While Twitter may be used by presidents and other celebrities to make the news, LinkedIn is strictly business.
It's for professionals, period!
By muting the global internet noise, it has turned its professional platform into a network where professionals within a niche or with complementary interests thrive.
That means that if you are laser-focused on B2B brands, using this platform, with incredible ease, you can target businesses in different industries.
LinkedIn makes it ridiculously easy for you to make all kinds of marketing research.
With such great insight, you can find, interact, and share your unique story with people globally based on the company type, industry, or job title.
YouTube
As a video-sharing platform, users watch an astonishing billion hours of videos every day.
It is the second biggest social media site and also the second largest search engine after Google.
It is ridiculously easy to get started on YouTube.
It is as easy as creating a YouTube channel for your brand. and you start uploading videos for your subscribers to view, like, comment, and share.
Additionally, your business can also advertise on YouTube if you want to increase your reach on the platform.
Read more about YouTube marketing here.
Pinterest has 250 Million MAUs.
Pinterest is a hub for discovering new things and getting inspired. The primary focus of Pinterest is no audience engagement.
However, it can be used to increase global awareness, attract potential customers, communicate marketing offers and boost conversion.
Pinterest says that 78 percent of its users say that content on Pinterest from brands is useful.
Since it has integrated shopping buttons, your customers can shop directly from your pins!
When you combine this seamless integration with its visual nature, you have an incredible medium for marketing creatively.
Pinterest also drives organic traffic to your website. This increases the overall awareness of your brand or business.
Since Pinterest wants to explore and be inspired, your presence on this exciting social media platform could put your brand on their minds.
Moreover, it helps your brand to sell your products or services if you present it as visually attractive content.
Snapchat
Snapchat has 255 Million MAUs
Snapchat is not like any other social media platform out there. It is a truly unique platform because of its personalized messaging, real-time video, emojis and doodles, and unconventional content.
Among its many features are Stories - photos or videos that can be replayed for 24 hours and Memories - saved photos for future viewing and sharing.
Snapchat made the Stories format popular. Now, other social media platforms like Instagram are using it.
It also has unique filters and stickers that embellish messages
Therefore, if your brand is not willing to produce unusual content, experiment, and have a little fun, then Snapchat is not the right social media marketing platform for you — at least for now.
What keeps Snapchat strong is the endearing way it appeals to its younger audience who are between the ages of 13 and 21.
Many of its users visit the platform many times a day
Savvy marketers use the platform to engage with their prospects and to create interest. Snapchat gets nearly a 4x higher engagement rate when compared to Instagram.
As a brand, you can use Snapchat to deliver epic content to your audience that might not be as visible through another channel.
It is effective for offering promo codes, launching products, and leveraging influencer marketing.
#6. What Is Included In Social Media Management?
Image source
Having reached this point in the article, it is natural to wonder what social media management includes.
As many and distinct as social media management tasks are, you want to know where you should focus your efforts. You might also be wondering how much time social media will require.
Let's consider these tasks that are part of your social media management:
A Social Media Management Agency Develops A Social Media Strategy
A social media strategy helps to make sure that every part of your campaigns is helping you get closer to meeting your marketing goals.
After you have decided which channels you plan to use, you’ll need to consider how often you plan to post and what types of content you will post.
A social media strategy is a detailed blueprint of everything you plan to accomplish on social media.
It answers the what, when, how, and why for all the content you post on your business’s social pages.
It guides the actions of the social media management team. It lets the social media manager know whether she's succeeding or failing.
A social media strategy requires an understanding of your buyers' persona or target audience.
What are the pain points or challenges of your audience? How do their needs align with your marketing goals?
Moreover, how can you arrest their attention with an offer that gets on the sales funnel of your business?
The answers to the following questions would help you develop a winning social media strategy for your marketing campaigns:
Who is your target audience?
How do you want your audience to view your brand?
What kind of content will you share?
What social platforms are you going to use?
What are your marketing goals, or results you want to achieve?
Just as you can have more than one buyer persona, you can have multiple social media goals. Some savvy marketers create multiple social media strategies for various social media channels.
Some of those strategies are to generate more leads, share product information, increase brand awareness, expand your network, or just about anything that helps your business connect with consumers.
Besides, a social media management agency could create multiple social media strategies for different social media platforms, depending on the nature of the platform.
For instance, you could use Facebook for generating new leads, Instagram for sharing visually impactful content, and YouTube for informational videos.
A Social Media Management Agency Creates A Social Media Calendar
Image source
A social media calendar is an essential tool in social media management. It helps the social media marketing plan and organizes all the content she would create and post on all the social media channels.
What should be on a social media calendar?
The basic information on a social media calendar is the posting date, content, and any link or image.
For maximum visibility, here are suggested posting frequencies:
Facebook pages: 1-2 per day.
Twitter: 3-10 times per day.
Instagram: 1-3 times per day.
Instagram Stories: 2-5 times per day.
Pinterest: 3-20 times per day.
LinkedIn: 1-2 times per week.
A Social Media Management Agency Creates And Curates Content For All Social Media Platforms
Irrespective of what your business is, creating and curating content is an important task in social media management.
To move the target audience closer to purchase, it’s critical for your social media manager to identify what type of content works in enticing your target groups into making a purchase.
Interactive content like quizzes, polls, contests, or Q&As is excellent for social media. EBooks are great for lead generation. Strongly positive content such as inspirational quotes encourages more people to share.
Images and videos are excellent. Not to be overlooked are user-generated content (UGC). You can also share curated content from third-party sources on relevant topics.
Being effective in creating and curating content requires that you have a thorough understanding of the social media channels and your audience.
Besides, the social media manager needs to know what the best practices are for creating content on each of the channels.
A Social Media Management Agency Interacts With Target Audience On Social Media
Image source
Social media engagement is similar to a long-term relationship. A long-term relationship takes dedication, readiness to adapt, the ability to think about the future and ensure the other party involved is happy for years to come.
Similarly, engaging with a social media audience goes beyond just responding to fans or followers who comment on your business page or send a message.
Therefore, when a social media manager thinks about social media engagement, it’s about how she uses networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to build a great customer experience.
It also includes developing new leads through conversations on a social media platform. Building relationships with social media influencers often helps to boost reach over time.
A Social Media Management Agency Creates Social Media Advertising Campaigns
Creating a winning social media ad is an important part of social media management. And that's because organic content doesn’t have the same reach on social media anymore.
For instance, BuzzSumo found Facebook posts from brand pages saw a 20% decline in engagement just since January 2017.
Social media advertising targets audiences on specific networks that meet your buyer personas.
When done right, such targeted consumers see your brand advertising in their feeds.
For example, posting ads on LinkedIn drives more revenue for your business as it allows you to reach new B2B leads who are similar to your best customers.
A Social Media Management Agency Manages Contests And Giveaways
Social media contests and giveaways are effective ways that social media management agencies use to increase audience engagement, followers, and brand loyalty.
A social media contest is simply a promotion aimed at your social media audience. It can be used to grow your email list in a short time.
It makes it easy to build brand awareness by allowing you to reach a new and bigger audience.
For example, Trind, a Dutch cosmetics company, ran a giveaway for their manicure set. Within two weeks they generated over 900 new leads.
If you’re looking for powerful all-in-one tools for running your social media contests, consider using:
A Social Media Management Company Measures And Reports On Social Media Success.
Image source
Monitoring the performance of your efforts is an important part of social media management.
The social media marketing sphere is becoming noisy and increasingly competitive.
That is why companies that are vying for the attention of an audience, invest more money for their campaigns to stand out.
A bigger ad spends, often requires proof that it’s delivering tangible results. This is where measuring social media ROI comes in.
Having said that:
When you hire a social media management agency, you must partner with an agency that monitors the performance of your social media accounts but also reacts when that performance drops.
A social media management company that sees a drop in performance should also have an action plan for improving low performance too.
With this kind of mindset, you’ll find the best agency to outsource your social media management.
#7. How Does Social Media Management Benefit Your Business?
Social media management tools and services make it easier to reach your target audience with the right content. Content that is helpful, relevant, and holistic resonates with your audience and increases profits.
Social media management tools and services make it easy to market your products or services. Here are other benefits of social media management:
Experts save you time
By scheduling posts ahead of time instead of when you feel like it, you can reach your audience at a time they are most likely to be online.
Some of the many tasks that a social media manager takes care of day-to-day, include monitoring your accounts, boosting your online reputation, evaluating marketing trends, creating and curating content, conducting time-consuming content research, and scheduling posts.
Build brand authority
Your brand is your unique fingerprint in a sea of competitors.
Your social media manager builds your brand authority by knowing which platforms are best for your marketing goals, posting consistently on multiple channels, and multiple times a day you increase the visibility of your brand and authority.
Understand your audience
By posting consistently, you get detailed analytics that helps you understand those that are engaging with your content, their pain points, location, and the solutions they want from your business.
Improve customer care
For instance, by creating a social media account on Twitter, many brands have been able to respond to their customers within minutes of receiving their complaints.
Increase traffic to your website
With COVID-19, many people today are spending a lot of time on social networks.
That makes social media platforms the perfect media for driving insane traffic to your website and gaining referrals.
So, if your social media campaigns are done effectively with a goal in mind, you can drive traffic to your website.
Social media, now more than ever, should be an important part of your business strategy. It creates an environment for developing meaningful connections with consumers.
Since trends and technology are constantly changing, social media management experts are key to exercising effective social media engagement and management.
Social media management has benefits. But, understanding how it works is only the first step in deciding whether or not you should purchase one of these tools or services for your own business.
So, what’s the next step? Cost.
#8. How Much Does It Cost To Outsource Social Media Management?
The cost of outsourcing your social media management can range from $1000 to $10,000 per month.
This investment is dependent on the kinds of social media management tasks requested by the client. It includes building and maintaining a social media marketing and advertising strategy.
It is important to note that depending on your business, it may cost you higher or lower to outsource your social media management.
To get a detailed understanding of the cost of outsourcing social media management, read this article: How much does outsourced social media management cost?
#9. Why You Need To Hire Us For Your Social Media Management
Image source
Here is a sneak preview of what's in the package you get when you hire us as your social media management agency.
1. Experience And Expertise
It is a lot of responsibility to trust any agency to be the voice of your company. Because there is so much to lose, you need to first look at the experience and expertise of the company.
We have a team of experienced experts who deliver consistent quality content that is helpful, human, and holistic.
2. Other Services We Offer
As important as it is to consider expertise and experience when considering hiring a social media agent company, it is equally important to look at the additional services that the company offers.
We develop websites, with a strong team of models, content marketers, HubSpot certified experts, and SEO students.
3. Look At Company Strengths
Do the company's strategic strategies align with your marketing goals? Every social media management agency has types of social media strategies that are better than others.
Check out the company's social media platforms. Charity begins at home.
4. How Much Does The Service Cost?
With the global coronavirus pandemic, putting almost every global business on lockdown, small and mid-sized brands are interested in knowing the cost of social media management outsourcing.
Read more about social media management costs here.
If you are tired of juggling your social media tasks while you ignore what you love - your core business, make a change now!
WhatsApp us at: +234 080 331 75396 or +234 080 579 37786
