What Does A Social Media Manager Do?

Social Media Management has gained significant importance in the current business landscape. It’s no longer acceptable for small businesses to forego activity on social media. Traffic on social media is so big that if you’re not using it to your advantage you could be missing out on opportunities.

When offering Social Media Management services to small businesses we often get similar responses. “Oh, social media management, so you just post stuff online…that’s pretty easy.” 

Social Media Management is more than just posting pretty pictures to Instagram and Facebook. Below are some of the responsibilities a Social Media Manager completes on a daily basis.

The first thing Social Media Managers do is ask questions and discover what the client’s goals are. This is the most important step because it provides a roadmap as to how they’re going to develop a strategy. Example goals could be to increase sales, increase brand awareness, or to promote a specific event. During this phase, the Social Media Manager also uncovers the specific markets and specific demographics that the client is targeting.

Next, a Social Media Manager does a full of all the clients’ social media accounts. This may require the administration team to gather all the login credentials. Once access is granted, they will dive deep and take notes on what is working, what is not working, look for opportunities, and what tactics they can deploy to achieve the clients’ goals.

A full audit also includes a look at your competitors are doing on social media, what the market landscape looks like, and a look at the influencers or people that they can connect with to increase a client’s reach. A Social Media Manager will also want to know what some FAQs are in your industry. This will give them an outline as to the type of content they should create and current trends that our target audience is interested in learning more about.

A Social Media Manager will need access to all current social media accounts. If a client does not have an account set up yet, the Social Media Manager will do so. Again, this may require working alongside an admin officer.

Some social media platforms don’t make sense for a particular business. It’s the Social Media Managers job to position the clients’ content on the social media platforms that will make the most impact. Dot Zero Multimedia recommends that every business has at least a Facebook page.

A Social Media Manager will ask for a library of images, videos, articles, industry websites, and other content to get them started. They’ll go in an improve your social media pages with current images, layout, and contact information.

Next, a Social Media Manager will discuss your advertising budget. If you’re starting from zero it is recommended to throw some money at your page and account to grow your audience.

Account management is what most people think of when discussing Social Media Management. Account management includes scheduling posts, planning posts, optimizing posts, finding images, posting videos, re-sharing, re-tweeting, liking, and/or responding to comments.

A Social Media Manager will use several social media management tools to aid in managing multiple accounts. Some tools we use are Buffer, Google Calendar, DropBox, Google Drive, and/or Hootesuite.

A Social Media Manager will ask a client for a Customer Service 101 document. These are common FAQs so they can answer questions even if it’s “Please send email to client@client.com.” Social Media Managers need to be customer service agents as well as marketers.

Social Media Managers need to be proactive as well as reactive. They get involved in the conversation and engage with influential people in your industry.

Account management also includes paid social media advertising. A Social Media Manager will want to discuss your target audience, budget, key events or promotions to advertising, and different formats of content.

A Social Media Manager will assist in creating cover art, sizing images, and adding images to the library. Dot Zero Multimedia recommends adding an image or video to every social media post so it’s important to have these at their disposal. Often Social Media Managers will offer video editing, content creation, and photo shoots to assist with gathering these assets.

Social Media Managers will be know how to correctly size images so they look best when posting. Here’s a good resource from Sprout Social.

As a business owner, you want to know if you’re seeing results from your social media management efforts. A Social Media Manager will prepare weekly/monthly/quarterly reports for review. These reports gauge how well each piece of content is performing. It will also open up conversations about where to go next. Reporting is the key to every Social Media Managers success.

Every business is different as to which analytics they’d like to review. An example of the most important Facebook KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are on the first page of the Facebook Insights tab. These are the most impactful KPIs that a Social Media Manager should be putting forth the most effort.

Social Media Management plays a significant role in the marketing of a business. There are 3.5 billion active users that spend an average of 3 hours/day on social media. (https://www.oberlo.com/blog/social-media-marketing-statistics). Make sure your content is reaching them with the aid of a Social Media Manager. They are the ones who drive the importance and push themselves to learn more about how to make sure that your story is being told.

As always, if you need assistance creating, updating, or optimizing your social media pages please email us at dotzeromedia@gmail.com or call 970-401-3044.

Thanks for reading.

DZM