THE BLOG

So, you’re thinking about outsourcing social media for your business. One of the most common questions that come up when I’m doing discovery calls is “what should a social media manager be doing?” And that is a great question.

So here are 9 tasks that your social media manager should be doing for you:

• Content Writing

Content writing is a technical yet creative form of writing used for internet marketing. This is something your social media manager needs to be well versed in. Your social media manager should be able to write the content and fill your content calendar (more on that later!).

• Content Curation

Content curation is different from content marketing. Content curation doesn’t include creating new content. It’s the act of finding, compiling, and sharing existing content with your online audience. The curated content is key to providing value to your audience and customers as well as building lasting relationships with your loyal fans.

• Custom Social Graphics

Every social media channel has shown that posts perform better with a graphic or video. These need to be high-quality and match your brand identity. Graphics for social media are key and help you establish your brand’s online identity. Pulling something off Google won’t cut it.

• Managing your Content Calendar

It doesn’t matter if the social media manager is working alone, or collaborating with a team. There HAS to be a marketing calendar and you as the client should have access to it and review it regularly.

The content calendar should be based on research, insights, and strategy as well as taking into account current marketing objectives.

• Research, Research, and More Research

Your social media manager is an expert in social media, not an expert in all industries. Make sure your social media manager is taking the time to learn your industry, standard language used, and your audience.I send my clients a worksheet when we kick off with social media strategies to help describe their brand voice and audience. This gives me a good starting point for my research.

• Social Listening

Do you know what your audience wants? Your social media manager should be able to tell you. Social listening is the act of skimming social channels to identify what customers are saying about your brand and the industry as a whole. This helps you understand your overall brand health, create content your audience is looking for, generate new marketing campaign ideas, improve customer experience, and be strategic with new products and messaging.

• Community Management

“Community management” is not the same thing as “social media management” – although the terms are often used interchangeably. Here is the difference: Social media marketing is the production and distribution of social content to reach new customers and communicate with existing customers. This focuses on things like reach and engagement. Community Management happens before and after you make social media posts. It’s part customer service, part just listening, and part active discussions in the community. Community management is typically more intimate than social media marketing where you are doing one-to-many posts. It is about relationships and how your brand takes the opportunity to interact with your community in public online spaces.

• Monitoring Engagement (+ Engaging Proactively)

This is probably one of the most important and time-consuming tasks your social media manager is doing. It’s the “social” in social media. Social media engagement is a popular (and very effective) way of strengthening interaction and brand affinity between a brand and its customer. Over time social media engagement will help build brand loyalty and may ultimately lead customers to become brand advocates. Not only should your social media manager be responding to comments on your content but they should also be commenting on your audience content to build relationships.

• Insights, Analytics, and Reporting

Social media isn’t one size fits all. You have to test, experiment, and report to figure out what works well with YOUR audience. A good social media manager will analyze past performance and make decisions based on analytics.