The Short answer is probably no. The realistic answer is Yes, you do need someone to manage your social media. Why? Well because social is a job, a task that requires attention and dedication. It requires time especially if your goal is to grow your followers and email list. This isn’t a hobby where you can just post some photos and cross your fingers. You need a plan.
Say your role is as Finance Director of your child’s school. You also take on the additional task of posting to social media because you feel like it’s the natural course of things because you can share fundraising events and other updates that may be of importance to your families and the donors that you’ll need to reach. You post current events as they happen, events such as Dr. Susse’s Read Across America Day or the last day of school or maybe the 25th anniversary of a teacher. But then nothing, nada, zilch. There is NOTHING posted to create engagement with your audience during your downtime AND this leaves your audience wondering HEY or what’s going on? Now we get it sometimes a business get’s well busy. But when you only post to ask your people for money or to share an event that leads to the ask you are training them to tune out your post or worse see them as spam.
Enter the social media manager…
The job of the social media manager is to assist with building a level of consistency within your business. What they DO NOT do is pull content out of thin air. You need to guide them, share with them your business philosophy and mission. What upcoming promotions you have planned along with your overall strategy Even just a day in the life of an employee is great content to share. Let’s not forget about the photography which is a big thing as well, so providing your SMM with quality images is a must.
Now with the overall landscape of social media changing at a rate of what seems like daily, you need someone who is dedicated to this job. A job of providing and TRACKING insight into what your audience wants to see more of. Their job is not only to create an ideal client avatar but to also connect with your clients and speak their language. Your clients want to be connected with. On average people spend about 2-3 hours a day on social media if your business is not speaking your client’s language they are listening to and buying from someone else.
Now I personally think the hardest part of hiring an SSM is a 2 fold issue. One I hate passing the baton. 2 I’m not used to working with a team. I know this about me and I tell people early on that these are weaknesses of mine. My ego wants me to stay in a comfort zone so but I don’t grow that way. I need to be with people and my business needs me to delegate as well. So my SSM understands this and we work together and created a plan ( as well a second IG account) where I can post my randomness and she can handle my business and the 2 happy little clams.
I think that’s why when it comes to handling the accounts of others I am great at it. I get to advise and take control. I’m emotionally disconnected from the business and can see objectively as well. It makes for a good partnership and even better results. As we shared in this post, The Business of Newsletters, having a social media manager is something that every business needs to consider if budget allows. Outsourcing this task is to someone who can handle it frees you to focus on what you are good at.
