Social media management is more than a task on your to-do list.
There, we said it.
In a time when every business is competing to be seen on the largest platform by the biggest audience a marketing team could think of, social media marketing is one of the most important tools at your disposal.
Being on social media isn’t a choice anymore.
Now the truth is, you can organically grow your online presence yourself. You can take advice from your peers and show up with engaging and authentic content. You can make sure that you are analyzing and responding to the data, monitoring engagement, use a healthy mix of content pillars and you can use royalty-free images if you don’t have high-quality images in the right format and size for whichever platform you are posting on. And don't forget, you can also target your ideal customer, but remember to stay on brand, use relevant hashtags and use an appropriate CTA for that post. Oh, and post at optimum times using effective captions that stop the scroll. Now, let’s be real for a second and admit that generally, most business owners are NOT doing this.
We know that some people are naturally creatively gifted and can throw together some well thought out copy to pair with engaging imagery and boom all that is needed is to schedule the posts (if you are posting ad-hoc please hire some form of help) and there you have it- content in a can. But this type of content will only do what it says on the tin. It WILL provide a point of reference for potential customers and quite possibly, if you put in some effort, will generate some engagement.
Hey, if you are the type of person that would trust the gardener to come in and trim your hair once he is finished with the bush, that’s cool.
Social media management via a digital marketing agency or freelancer is NOT posting your content randomly. Any reputable digital marketing agency will first take you through an onboarding process where they look at how your current social media is performing. They should then give your accounts a detailing experience, making sure all the information is correct and that your profile photos are appropriate for your business, that your account is optimised and set up correctly. Your digital marketing agency will get to know you and your businesses values, coupled with your goals, they will use this information to formulate a strategy to help you reach them. As part of implementing this strategy, your digital marketeer will monitor how posts are performing and adapt accordingly, staying on brand but changing things up when they need to. They also stay ahead of trends and new features that platforms are rolling out to make sure that your marketing is on point and getting noticed. They may also offer SEO services which can tell you quite simply how well your campaigns are working by looking at the information from your website. And yes, this comes at an extra cost and no, it isn’t for everyone, only those looking to increase sales and growth.
Social media marketing is one part of the entire digital marketing world. It serves a different purpose for different businesses and should be used in different ways depending on what you want to achieve from it.
But please, for the retention of our sanity, don’t be disappointed that you aren’t getting increased sales of your high-end niche product by posting a meme of someone drinking gin every Friday. We have too much experience and too much expertise to politely pretend that works, for anyone. Without wanting to sound too salesy (heaven forbid) if you don’t invest in your own company, why do you expect anyone else to? Many digital marketing agencies offer training in social media so you can wing it with some knowledge behind you, and many companies do this and do social media marketing in-house that suits their needs perfectly.
Get in touch with Purely Personal Marketing for more information on how our expertise and creativeness can help your business reach more customers. For information on Social Media Marketing, just drop us an email at hello@purelypersonalmarketing.co.uk