Anyone who’s anyone has what it takes to be a social butterfly online now. Managing how you choose to convey yourself to the online world is, for some of us, becoming as much a daily routine as having a shower or brushing our teeth! But social media is a powerful tool and must be used correctly, especially if you’re a business. So before you embark on your next social journey make sure you understand everything there is to know when it comes to social media management.
What Is Social Media Management?
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are pretty much household names now, and with the almost continual development of new mobile apps the number of social media platforms out there and available to us are on the rise too. The beauty of social media is no doubt its ability to allow individuals to share a multitude of things with others and bring people from all over the world together into one ‘space’. This in turn opens our eyes to new experiences, interests and marketplaces, giving businesses an opportunity to work with social media marketing agencies to promote their products and services to the masses.
How To Get Social Media Management Right
With so many channels to choose from and types of content to share, its so important to have a robust plan in place to stop you getting lost in the crowds. You can’t just go in all guns blazing, coming up with a fully comprehensive social media strategy is an absolute must when it comes to social media management.
To keep your brand image safe on social media, it’s important to keep your language, tone and appearance consistent and appropriate, nothing that could be considered offensive. Your audience need to know its you (the brand) speaking from whatever content or message you choose to share, on whatever platform you see fit. You’ll also need to think about how often you would like to post, the last thing you want to do is smap your audience, too much of something will lead to an inevitable loss of interest.
Using social media to step out of your comfort zone and go a bit sideways with your marketing efforts might seem risky, but it might just be one worth taking. Take fast food giant KFC, they featured a 4 hour long live stream of kittens climbing on a model of the brand’s mascot, sounds silly but over 1 million viewers tuned in! When thinking about your social media management it just be worth embracing the weird and wonderful. Social media is about connecting not with another screen but with the real human being, with real experiences, at the end of it.
Getting Social Media Wrong
Whilst social media can provide opportunities for your business like nothing else, it can also bring with it damage to your brand and its image if not managed properly. The very nature of social media allows people freedom of speech and expression which can unfortunately also come in the shape of very public complaints. It is crucial that your social media team have a strict and coherent social media crisis management policy on how to effectively deal with people speaking out against your brand. India’s largest telecom company Airtel recently found themselves in a situation where an upset customer brought religious discussions into the social media space. An upset customer demanded to speak with a representative of a different religion, and because this demand was seemingly upheld, the company faced a PR nightmare. Make sure you have thought of every angle when constructing your policies, even the smallest of mistakes can become massive issues online.
Social Media Management Tools
If you would like to take the bull by the horns and tackle the social media giant by yourself then there are a number of social media management tools that could prove helpful. Instead of grappling with sticky note reminders to post something at a certain time of day, these online tools allow you to work out how often you should post and allow you to manage a carefully crafted balance of content types and messages. One of the best advantages of these tools is the ability to manage multiple platforms at any one time, so you can coordinate your tweets with with your facebook posts whilst also fitting in sometime for instagram photos too!
Hootsuite is a fairly popular tool and is pretty simple to get to grips with, also it’s free! In a similar light Buffer, another fairly long established platform is also a good place to start. If Twitter is your social voice of choice then Tweetdeck might just be the platform for you. However if you’re an agency looking to manage a number of client profiles in one place then you might need something more along the lines of Social Pilot.
Hiring a social media management agency
Any social media management company you choose to hire needs to understand your brand inside out, they are the voice of your brand on a very human level and so for as much as your audience puts trust in what they put out, you need to put trust in them.
The skills of a social media manager range from a sound understanding of SEO and possibly even SEO copywriting, flair for design and edit, ability to carry out analytics reporting, intrinsic research and planning capabilities and maybe even a little video editing thrown in.
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