Why businesses need to employ a social media manager

When effortlessly browsing online you may think that social media management looks like easy work. Well, you’d be wrong with that assumption. These days social media management is a time-consuming and somewhat tricky affair – if you’re going to do it right.

It’s a fact that the mix of art and science that is involved in conducting successful social media campaigns is growing ever more complex.

Hence, this is why businesses need to employ a social media manager. It’s now vital to handover the duties of social media marketing to a trained professional and takes the stress of its management out of the business owners’ hands. It’s safe to say that the demand for social media managers has increased ten-fold and the benefits of hiring for this role within your company are huge. In fact, a business nowadays will rarely survive among the intense competition without a well thought out, planned and executed social media strategy.

A competent social media manager is sure to have completed an accredited social media course and will have learnt many proven social media techniques and will have an eye for creating eye-catching posts and ensuring constant effective engagement online.

What aspects of digital marketing is the responsibility of a social media manager?

We’ve established that social media management is a skilled profession and there’s a high demand for such a professional so let’s take a closer look at what aspects of digital marketing fall under the responsibility of a social media manager.

• Content creation – Creating content may seem like a straight forward task, right? But consider the massive amount of competition there is online. It’s difficult to get your brand noticed amongst all the noise and activity on the web. Being able to constantly create captivating content to draw in viewers is a skill that every social media manager is able to bring to the table.
• Effective research – Adequately researching your competition and what your audience wants is extremely time-consuming, but it’s vital. Your brand needs to stay up to date with the latest online trends.
• Consistency – In the digital world a brand is only as popular as its last post. This may sound harsh, but it’s a fact. Therefore, posting consistency is crucial to the success of your business online. Without a social media manager, this important part of digital marketing over gets overlooked – not a good thing if you want to stay ahead of the competition online.
• Original and relative content – Authenticity is one of the most important principles of digital marketing as consumers face a daily barrage of content. Remember, authentic and relative content goes a long way to boosting your brand and establishing trust.
• Define marketing goals– Digital marketing objectives need to be defined in order to be successful. Clear and precise digital marketing goals must be set as this can easily be overlooked and understanding your company’s marketing goals avoids campaigns from getting messy and disorganised.
• Engagement – Engaging with your audience may seem obvious, but being quick and consistent in engaging with your audience is a ‘soft’ skill that social media managers have perfected to a fine art. Business social media profiles must be constantly monitored to gain traction and increase traffic.
• Measurement and tracking – A social media manager understands the importance of measuring digital marketing campaigns. In fact, this is one of their most important duties. How else will you know what’s working or what’s getting left by the wayside?

There are really handy measurement and tracking tools available, but this process can be quite difficult to understand for the layman.

• Analysis – Checking in on the number of likes and shares your post receives isn’t a true reflection of its success. There’s a lot more to behind the scenes stats that a social media manager will use to determine its success.

There’s an undeniable value of employing a social media manager

When considering whether to employ a social media manager all of the above-mentioned points should be taken into account. The cost of having a social media manager as part of your team is easily outweighed by the incredible value they will add to your overall digital marketing efforts.