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One thing business owners know there is never enough of is time. If you own a business, you likely already know how important it is to use social media as part of your marketing plan. However, social media can be difficult to learn and extremely time-consuming. You might be wondering if it might be time to hire a social media manager to take over your accounts. But how do you know it’s time?
Before we get into the reasons you might be ready to hire a social media manager, you might be wondering what they actually do. Here are just a few of the things a manager might do for your business.
Nobody will understand your social media presence better than your social media manager. They will help make sure that your voice and content are consistent with your brand on all social media platforms.
Consistency is key when it comes to social media. A manager can help you keep your accounts up to date and scheduled. This includes cross-promotion between your accounts and your blog if you have one.
Having a content calendar ensures you are not only staying consistent with posts but also that you are sharing or posting at the right time. This includes coordination of branded content, special events, holidays, promotions, and more.
A manager will be able to make sure your social media accounts are not only up and running, but also manage engagement with your followers. They can answer questions, comment, like, and share for you so that your brand is in front of new faces all the time. This can also set you up to work with other brands or partners and manage those relationships as well.
When you hire an expert, they are able to stay up to date with trends and best practices in a way that is difficult for a business owner to do on their own.
A social media manager will be able to tell if what your company is posting is working or not. They can also help you tailor your posts to what your audience is looking for.
In years past, advertising was the traditional way to market a business. With the rise of social media, businesses started taking their money out of advertising and putting their time and effort into social media and content creation. There are literally billions of people who are using one form or another of social media daily. It’s often the first place business owners go to market their business and it’s no wonder – it’s free to use and can be a powerful tool to meet your goals!
Social media is invaluable for small businesses that want to reach new customers without having to invest money in more traditional advertising while still reaching their target customers. So if you are like so many other businesses using social media as their main form of marketing, hiring an expert is even more important.
You have an amazing product or service. You’re taking amazing photos and writing wonderful copy. You post regularly. And yet, you are seeing very little engagement with your posts. Sound familiar?
If your engagement rate leaves something to be desired, but you can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong, it might be time to hire an expert. A social media manager is someone who will be able to help you tailor your content, schedule, and other best practices to reach your ideal audience and foster higher engagement.
There are a huge number of places to market your business using social media, but they all have unique requirements for success. Some require square photos while some have to be rectangles. Certain sites require lots of video and others do better with photos. The language, keywords, daily posting requirements, engagement expectations, etc. are different no matter where you go. And let’s not forget… best practices change all the time!
If you are a business owner, attempting to keep up with the requirements and changes can become a full-time job in and of itself. Not keeping up with them can actually hurt your business too by reducing your reach or taking time away from other important tasks.
When you know you need to post consistently across social media platforms, it can be a struggle to make sure that your brand voice is consistent. Potential new clients are only going to get a short amount of time to get to know who you are. If you are projecting a different image on Pinterest than you are on Instagram, you might be missing out on your perfect customer. Messaging is extremely important in terms of marketing and a social media pro can help make sure that you are putting your best foot forward on all your platforms. They will pick up on inconsistencies quickly and are specially trained to think like your ideal customer helping to make sure that when the right person finds you they will want to know more about who you are and what you do.
Perhaps you are spending a good chunk of time on perfecting your social media presence and yet your audience just isn’t taking the actions you want them to. You feel like you’ve tried everything, like you’re doing everything right, and yet you’re still not seeing the success you know you should be. Does this sound familiar? If so, it might be time to hire an expert. A social media pro will be able to audit your brand and accounts and design a specific strategic plan to help increase conversions or audience action.
This can be especially helpful for businesses that have seen success in the past but have come to a standstill as far as growth. A good social media manager can be a new set of expert eyes that can help you level up your business to meet your goals.
Hiring a social media manager can be difficult.
Expanding your team with a social media manager is crucial for a variety of industries that want to talk about themselves or their products using social media. There are a number of reasons to hire a social media manager, whether you’re trying to increase your brand awareness or hoping to connect with a new audience. If while reading this you’re realizing that it is in fact time to hire a manager, you’ll need to find someone who’s right for the job. There are hundreds of qualified people out there, and the competition for good ones is high. It’s important to make sure you hire someone who is right for you. Here are some tips on how to hire the perfect social media manager:
As tempting as it may be to simply go with someone who is well known, picking someone who has experience marketing in your industry is crucial! Keeping up with trends, hashtags, audiences, and more is done more efficiently by someone who already knows how to market within your niche. Ask to see other accounts that they manage. Check to see if they are doing all the things that you know are best practices, such as consistent marketing, tone, branding, etc. If their accounts are filled with repetition, spelling errors, or inconsistent posting then keep looking.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised! If you are looking for someone to take over tasks for you, such as following a posting schedule or answering messages in your inbox, it might be okay to go with someone who is unfamiliar. However, if you are looking for an expert strategist who can help you with a holistic plan for social media success, it’s well worth your time and effort to find someone with experience.
There is a huge difference in the way you market a location-based business, an e-commerce business, and a service-based business. A good social media manager will know that. If your manager has only worked with one type of business we would recommend looking for someone else if they’re not an expert in your niche.
Social media managers often need certain things, like a blog or photo/video assets, a working website, etc. in order for them to help you be successful. If what your potential manager is promising sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You’ll know you’ve found someone who will be a good fit when they can clearly describe how they will help you and they work to set your expectations realistically.
Interviewing a social media manager can feel a little bit like dating. When you find the right person for the job, you usually “just know”. You’ll be spending a lot of time with this person and they will be getting to know your business inside and out. It’s important to feel like you’ll be able to maintain the level of communication needed to be successful. There needs to be trust. After all, they’re responsible for an incredibly important role in your business! When you find someone who “gets you”, it will be that much easier to build a relationship.
A manager should have the right tools and the right knowledge for the job. They should be able to give you strategic and detailed information about how to create content and be successful on your social media. Make sure to ask how they will communicate this to you, and which metrics they will measure to help grow your business. These should be specific to your industry and goals too. If you are trying to increase your audience, but they don’t mention followers or reach as a metric they will measure or focus on, that could be a red flag.
It really depends! Freelance workers are often able to give your more individual attention in a way that an agency can’t. Sometimes hiring an agency means you lose the personal connection between yourself and the person actually doing the job. Hiring an agency to take over your social media can seem daunting, but at Wave Social, we’re committed to doing things a little differently.
Wave Social is a full-service social media management agency that focuses specifically on growing mission-forward businesses. We’re a small women-owned and operated agency with over 15 combined years of experience in marketing. We have expertise in leveraging Pinterest to grow businesses. We help you find your people through authentic connection by building trust and community with your audience. Our team is ready to help you ride the social wave to business success through social media.
👋 whitney + allie, wave co-founders
https://open.spotify.com/episode/06IxsPXvm1Pk4rTZrD0hrX?si=e0b72f3021a9486a
disclosure: wave social is part of the affiliate network for some of these online tools and products, so we may receive a small commission if you purchase through any of our links.
