As a business owner, you know how important it is to keep your customers updated. With few exceptions, social media sites are the best way to carry on these conversations and foster a strong sense of community. When done correctly, your customers will view you more like a trusted friend, not just an expense.
But, you don’t have the time to run your business and build out successful social media campaigns weekly. Plus, learning the ins and out of social networking is a job on its own. This is exactly why adding a social media specialist to your payroll is indispensable to your bottom line.
What is a Social Media Specialist?
If you’re looking to grow your brand awareness, you’ll want someone who’s skilled on various social media platforms. While it might sound like an easy job, it’s not as simple as your recreational evening hour-long scrolling sessions.
Social Media Specialists are responsible for:
- Developing brand identity, awareness and online reputation
- Identifying your target audience
- Setting clear objectives and solidifying a posting strategy
- Creating engaging posts across various social media platforms
- Expanding your social media network within your target market
- Start discussions and respond to comments
- Scheduling updates to occur naturally, not in clumps of activity
- Tracking which sites provide the most interest for your business.
Depending on your needs, the social media specialist you hire might devote their time to developing audience interest through Facebook discussion groups or tweeting out relevant product information links to your Twitter followers. By letting their creative juices flow, you may find your social media specialist creating conversational posts and fun videos. In fact, both are a great way to get a lively conversation going within the comments and link back to your website. A skilled social media specialist will be able to multitask between platforms and help you determine how best to reach your potential customers.
55% of shoppers learn about new brands from social media.
Why Businesses Need a Social Media Specialist
Long story short, it’s vital to your digital marketing strategy.
Because social media is always changing, you’ll need someone to keep up with it. From monitoring algorithm changes and trends to adapting the current strategy to better function— it’s a bit of work. When new features premier, someone’s going to have to dig in and learn to maximize its use. Honestly, there are plenty of benefits of having social media, and having a social media specialist takes the load off of your plate.
Because social media is not set-it-and-forget-it, your business will also need a social media specialist that can keep the ball rolling and engagement high. Spoiler alert— that takes time. “In a realistic world, you’d spend about 1-2 hours a day ensuring your social media strategy is able to go head-to-head with your competitors,” explains Thryv’s Social Media Manager, Chandlor Wright.
As long as the small business social media marketing strategy is in line with the goal of the company, social media can be used to enhance your customer experience efforts.
When to Hire a Social Media Specialist
Not every business needs a social media specialist to succeed, but if keeping up on social is hectic, consider adding one to your payroll. Red flags can be as simple as:
- Consistent dread of checking your profiles
- Becoming involved in debates that have little or nothing to do with your company
- Getting sidetracked with irrelevant blog posts, articles and videos
- Not having at least 10 hours a week to dedicate to social media
- Failing to meet other strategic goals in place for your business
In addition to saving you time from monitoring the different platforms, social media specialists are skilled at creating compelling copy in relatively few words. This talent can turn the mediocre traffic you receive from social networks into a valuable segment of your revenue.
Must-Have Skills for Social Media Specialists
- The ability to tell a captivating story. As the company’s voice, a social media specialist should be able to share the brand’s story in a tone that speaks to the intended audience. Of course, strong writing and editing skills are a must.
- Great eye for visual arts. Part of telling the company’s story includes the visual aspect. Eye-catching graphics will draw in a fresh audience. Make sure your social media profiles are on-brand by creating graphics that use your brand colors and are aesthetically pleasing.
- Sense of community. An effective social media strategy will engage your audience and build a community. Just as there is a responsibility to post, there’s also the responsibility to reply.
- Trend awareness. Social media best practices and algorithms are constantly changing. Social media specialists will need to create fresh content that is relevant to stay in the game.
- In-depth understanding of each platform. Social media platforms aren’t one-size-fits-all. Your social media specialist should be mindful of what works best on specific platforms and see the value in A/B testing.
Other Options
Perhaps adding staff onto payroll isn’t an option for your business right now. With the gig economy on the rise, some social media experts are available freelance. By building out social media marketing goals for your company and including a strategy, you essentially hand off your brain to the freelancer.
If you can’t afford or are unsure about hiring a freelancer, you do have the option to bite the bullet and do it yourself. Yes, this is going to be a time-consuming task but, finding software to help alleviates the stress.
Your social media management software should:
- Connect to your social media accounts
- Manage all your social profiles from one place, regardless of the device
- Post and share content instantly
- Schedule posts in advance
- Offer a library of pre-written posts waiting to be customized
If you choose to take this route, spend time researching your software options to make sure you find one to meet your company’s specific needs. You may just stumble across an end-to-end software that will not only make social easier but, also assist in automating your entire business.
