A solid social media presence is non-negotiable for your small business. Compared to traditional advertising, social media is the preferred alternative for time-strapped and budget-conscience small business owners.
Growing a business through social media is not comparable to managing your personal account. Social media managers understand the difference between the two. Social media managers can access information about your account’s performance, engagement, and audience behavior. They devise and track campaign goals, form posting schedules, curate content, optimize your posts for search engines, and build a relationship with your followers—and I’m only skimming the surface here!
Still on the fence about bringing a specialist aboard to help optimize your brand’s digital presence? Here are five signs you need to hire a social media manager for your business:
You’re not social media savvy
If you don’t know the ins and outs of every social media platform, that’s okay. Most people don’t. However, if you’re still struggling with the fundamentals—you’re puzzled over the concept of hashtags, overwhelmed just by the sight of Facebook Insights, or you keep repinning vegan recipes to your board dedicated to new product releases—you may need to consult with a social media specialist who can at least provide one-to-one training sessions for clarity and direction.
Also, hiring your nephew whose post went viral on TikTok once will not solve your social media woes. At a minimum, an exceptional social media strategy requires extensive knowledge of the marketing landscape, the inbound methodology, consumer behavior, and hands-on, professional experience in the field.
You don’t have the time
A social media manager is a full-time position (don’t @ me, thanks). Your tiny but mighty business requires various tasks every day just to remain up and running. Dividing your time between those vital tasks and social media management may be expecting too much of yourself.
As your business grows, there won’t be as much time to manage all your social media accounts. If you’re already investing 40-plus hours per week into your business, it’s a tough ask to tack on another 30 just for social media strategy and management.
A day in the life of a social media manager may look like checking on campaign metrics, researching social media trends within your industry, crafting a content calendar based on micro and macro company objectives, responding to every brand engagement and customer inquiry, identifying trending hashtags, news, accounts, and more—and that’s just for one platform!
Social media marketing is at the bottom of your priority list
If you’re more focused on channeling your energy into email marketing, brand development, or product photography, your social media presence will continue to fall by the wayside. And hey, it’s totally okay if you’d rather not handle that side of your business!
A social media manager can take the burden of managing your social accounts off your shoulders, freeing up time and energy to prioritize business activities that spark joy for you.
Your current social media ROI is inadequate
It’s a sucky feeling when you fall short of all the goals you had hoped to achieve on social media. Whether it’s because you didn’t set appropriate benchmarks or your strategy wasn’t fleshed out enough, your social media manager will work with you to set SMART goals that align beautifully with your social media objectives and business goals.
You lack the proper tools
Social media tools and software can improve your small business’s workflow efficiency. Depending on your goals, these tools will crawl the web for brand mentions to measure sentiment among your target audience, collect data on your competitors or streamline customer service tasks.
That is to say, social media marketing requires a significant investment of your time, energy and resources. It’s more cost-effective and will save you time to hire someone who already knows how to use these tools.