What a Social Media Manager Does and Why You Need One

Digital marketing has become the most influential form of marketing, with social media leading the show. After all, more than half of the world’s population is on at least one social media platform. You can reach millions of people in seconds with just a single post.

Whenever someone tells me that they’re too busy to post on social media consistently (and let’s be honest, as a business owner, you are very busy!), I tell them to hire a social media manager. In return, I’m usually asked, “What does a social media manager do?” 

What a Social Media Manager Does

A social media manager helps develop a strong social media presence through defined brand guidelines, a keen strategy, marketing, community management, and providing 24/7 care.

Brand Guidelines

Consistency is the most important thing when it comes to social media. Many people assume that means that you just have to post regularly. While that is important, it is equally important to be consistent with aesthetics and attitude.

A social media manager will help you develop and execute a style guide. A style guide details how your brand will appear and act on social media. 

Essential aspects of a style guide include:

• Color palette

• Image filters

• Font library

Your brand guidelines also include your brand’s tone and voice, which a social media manager will help you develop and convey. Your tone and voice are essentially your brand’s personality, and it will help set your brand apart from your competitors. Just like you have a unique personality, so does your brand!

Strategy

Your social media strategy is a bit technical. This is where you and your social media manager will determine what you’re going to publish and when to reach your business growth goals with social media. 

Social media strategies come in two parts:  

1. Content pillars. Most businesses are multi-faceted, which means their social media strategy should be, too. Content pillars dictate the different topics and themes that will be communicated through social media.

2. Content calendars. Content calendars show precisely what and when will be posted over a given period of time. They include daily posts, when you’ll go “live,” when you’ll run a giveaway or contest, and more.

Marketing

The ultimate goal of having a social media presence is to drive more people to your website and increase sales. Having a link to your website in your bio is a great start, but a social media manager will help you do much more than that. They will find creative ways to let your audience know about new and existing offers through organic efforts and paid ads.

Great social media managers are marketing experts. They will be able to create, thoughtfully place, and measure the success of paid ads across your preferred social media platforms. Research shows that businesses find the most success when they run Facebook and Instagram in conjunction with one another.

Of course, every business is unique. Your social media manager should use specific analytics tools to measure a certain campaign’s success (or failure) and then adjust accordingly.

Community Management

Although social media is undoubtedly a valuable digital marketing tool, we cannot forget that social media’s primary purpose is to be social. However, it can be hard to find the time to respond to questions and comments on social media when you’re also handling orders, answering emails, taking phone calls, etc. A social media manager will develop meaningful connections with your followers by quickly and politely responding to them.

Interacting with your community through comments, messages, and likes makes your account more attractive to social media algorithms, increasing your profile visibility. Just think how many followers you’ll gain if the algorithm chooses to feature YOU on Instagram’s Explore page!

24/7 Care

Even if your business doesn’t run 24/7, the world of social media never sleeps! While you’re busy taking care of everyday business tasks, living your life, and getting some rest (even business owners need to relax sometimes), your social media manager will stay on top of things, so the integrity of your business remains intact. 

24/7 social media care works in three parts:

1. Prevents crisis

2. Retains customers

3. Keeps you fresh and top of mind

Prevents crisis

Say you have a customer that received a broken product, and they tagged you in a photo of said product with a particularly nasty caption. If you’re too busy to check on your social media all day, that post could go unacknowledged and be seen by thousands of people! A social media manager will be notified of the mention of your business right away and start to work on remediating the issue, beginning with a sincere apology.

Retains customers

“Crisis communication” helps you retain customers by letting them know that you hear their feedback, you’re taking it to heart, and you’re going to take action to fix it.

Keeps you fresh and top of mind.

Your social media manager will make sure not a day goes by without your business interacting on social media in some way. This consistent presence will make sure your audience knows you’re here and you’re constantly sharing fresh content for them to enjoy.

Why You Need a Social Media Manager

If you still need to be convinced that you need a social media manager, here are four great reasons:

1. You’re busy running your business. You’ve got 1 million other things to worry about! You’re an expert on your business, and a social media manager is an expert on social media. Let them handle it!

2. Running social media is time-consuming. Creating content, publishing, answering messages, responding to comments, interacting with others’ posts… You could be doing so many other things with the time it takes to do everything that social media management requires.

3. It can get overwhelming. As your social media presence grows, your account will be inundated with comments, questions, demands, tags, etc. This constant stream of notifications is enough to stress any business owner out to the point that they delete the app and walk away! A social media manager will act as a buffer so you don’t get overwhelmed.

4. Things evolve very quickly online. Some social media trends are here today and gone… like, an hour later. A social media manager will make sure your business participates in current fads, is privy to important updates, and interacts with the right people.

Now, let’s get started! Social media management is my passion, just as much as running your business is yours. I would love to chat about your goals and how I can help you reach them!