Social media is a huge part of our lives these days. From Instagram to Twitter to LinkedIn, everyone has a profile on at least one of these platforms.
Social media, for all its flaws, is one of the best marketing tools that have come out of the innovations in technology in the past few decades. With our obsession with online life, you can almost guarantee that your customers will see you, be following you, and engage with your online presence.
Having a presence on social media can help you to build a loyal consumer base and the tools within each platform will also give you an indication of the customers you’re appealing to, informing you of their gender, age, and even their social media habits.
Social media is an incredible tool for businesses, both online and offline, these days, which is why you should consider some kind of social media management within the marketing side of your business.
In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at what social media management actually is, why it is so important for businesses these days, how to build a social media strategy, and what the benefits of a good strategy are. To learn more, keep reading the rest of this article now!
What Is Social Media Management?
So, we’ve told you it is important, but what actually is social media management and what does it include?
Social media management at its most basic is managing your company or brand’s online presence on social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and analysing the data that you collect through this use.
A social media manager will help you to post relevant and quality content to improve your engagement online and increase your following. You’ll also be able to analyse the way this content moves through social media, its impact on your audience, and the actions this audience takes upon seeing your content.
Social media management may include everything from creating content, including imagery, videos, and audio, creating a social media calendar, managing your profiles, and managing social media advertising.
Why Is Social Media Important?
There are a number of ways that social media is important for modern businesses. These include:
- Helps you to engage with newer audiences – Social media is used by younger users who may not engage with traditional advertising channels. You may be able to expand your customer base through social media use.
- Connects you with your audience – Once you have a loyal following on social media, you can engage and connect with them. Comments, messages, shares, and likes all allow you to connect with the people who use your services or buy your products. This can further increase the loyalty and trust your consumer base has for your brand.
- Exhibits your brand personality – Brand identity is incredibly important for businesses. It helps consumers to recognise your company and improves your marketing. Social media is another marketing tool and you can utilise it to make your brand as recognisable as possible.
- It’s cost-effective – Unlike many other kinds of marketing, it is totally free to hold space on social media. This means you can put out content, engage with consumers, and analyse data without spending a penny. This is fantastic news for new businesses in particular.
How To Build A Social Media Management Strategy
Your social media strategy will be curated entirely with your brand in mind and so all strategies differ slightly. However, there are a few key aspects that all social media strategies should have to ensure their success. These are as follows:
1. Set some social media goals
For this step, we recommend setting goals using the SMART acronym. The SMART acronym, standing for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely, can ensure that the goals you set are achievable.
Setting goals helps you to know what you’re aiming for and plan accordingly. It can also give you something to measure against which is essential when tweaking your strategy for further improvement.
2. Understand your audience
Before building your online presence, you will have already defined the kind of audience you are targeting. This is a crucial part of branding and marketing and can help you to know who you’re trying to engage with your content.
Once you begin building your presence, you will be able to follow the social media metrics you gain from posting content and engaging with followers to better serve your audience and draw in new followers from similar demographics and niches.
3. Get to know who you’re competing with
This is another aspect that you have likely addressed in your overall marketing and branding strategies, but it is just as important for social media. Look to the people you’re competing with and people you admire online and see how they’re working. What are they posting? How are they connecting with their audience?
Emulating and building on those who inspire you can help you to build the presence you want and a presence that will help you to keep growing your customer base.
4. Create a calendar
Social media platforms are relatively unforgiving of users who don’t post regularly and so, creating a calendar so that you know what you’re posting and when can help you to stay on track. Posting regular, quality content makes the algorithm happy and ensures that your followers get to see what you’re posting.
A calendar also helps with forward-planning and gives you the time to create the content in advance so that you’re not rushing and putting out less-than-perfect content.
5. Find a social media management team
While you can manage your own social media, employing a social media marketing agency or social media manager is recommended. Staying on top of your social media while also trying to grow other aspects of your business is difficult to maintain and could see you falling behind in one or more areas.
Why not get in contact with our social media marketing team to see how they could help you with your online presence today?
Final Thoughts
Social media regularly gets a bad name for itself but when it comes to marketing, it is an incredibly efficient tool. Modern businesses are now expected to have a presence on at least one social media platform as part of their marketing strategy and it can help them to reach new audiences.
Check out our social media management service page to find out how we could help you to build a social media presence today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is social media management important?
Social media is used by more than half of the world’s population. This means that you open your business up to a huge audience by establishing a social media presence. Utilising these platforms can help you engage and connect with your audience, building brand loyalty, trust, and recognition which, in turn, can drive sales.
What is the difference between social media marketing and social media management?
While similar disciplines, social media marketing and social media management differ slightly. Social media marketing looks at the content you’re publishing and how it is used to promote your business. It may also include the use of paid ads on social media platforms. Social media management is about organising the output of content and analysing the data it produces to improve the overall strategy
Is social media management part of marketing?
Yes. Social media management falls under your digital marketing strategy. It looks at organising the output of promotional content on your social media platforms to draw in potential clients and customers. The management of your social media presence includes the organisation and creation of marketing content.
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