02 Apr How Brands Can Effectively Support Their Social Media Managers
It’s been a rough year for pretty much everyone. And social media has become a less friendly place along the way. That’s why it’s important to check in on your team that is working hard to make social media management seem effortless.
At Ignite Social Media, we do nothing but social media marketing. My team and I recently discussed the advice we’d give brands and agencies for effectively supporting their social media teams. After all, your social team is your front-line representation of your brand. Here are some of the ideas we came up with.
1. Say Goodbye to One-Man-Shows
There’s so much that goes into social media marketing that one person cannot successfully do everything. From editorial planning to content production, from paid media to reporting, social media requires many different skill sets and a lot of time to do it all properly. Identify those skill sets that your current manager does well and find support in other areas to help lighten the load. Plus, two minds are always better than one when you’re looking for a new creative angle.
2. Be Mindful of Response Times
Night and weekend monitoring has become essential for many brands during the pandemic. Asking one person to be “always-on” isn’t reasonable or realistic. If you need to staff outside normal business hours, be sure you’re properly resourced and that you have an escalation plan in place should your team need to reach leadership during off-hours.
3. Hire Social-Centric Experts
When you’re hiring, make sure your social media team has a background driving meaningful results on social media. Just because someone has a Facebook account doesn’t mean they know how to run a business page on Facebook. It takes a skilled expert to understand the nuances of the various social platforms and apply them to help your brand thrive.
4. Have Backup Resources
It’s important to let people recharge. Social media managers should have the ability to completely disconnect when they’re off the clock, too. Make sure you have systems in place for backup personnel to be set up for success should your manager be on vacation. When you deal with trolls daily, taking a week off now and again is imperative.
5. Educate Leadership on Social Media Basics
While daily decisions on social media tactics should be left up to the social team, leaders within the organization should have a basic understanding of your social media strategy and best practices. Too often, people in leadership roles call for social teams to execute tactics that don’t follow the strategy or focus instead on vanity metrics, like getting more followers. Allowing the social team to educate leadership members on these items will prove more productive for everyone.
6. Provide Social Teams with Ample Resources
Help your social media teams work smarter by providing them with tools they can leverage to complete their jobs. From grammar checkers to project management tools to industry subscriptions, these resources add value and can be major time savers.
Additionally, and especially when it comes to content creation, make sure your team has what they need and then some. Set these team members up for success by giving them access to any and all assets, products, swag, logos, brand colors, fonts, and more. Even if you don’t see the value in it, it could spark an idea or be a small piece of a larger creative initiative. There’s no such thing as too many pre-approved assets, information, resources, etc.
7. Establish Clear Escalation and Brand Guidelines
Brand guidelines help social media managers work within a framework that aligns with your other marketing efforts. You may need to adapt these guidelines a bit for social, but that should be a conscious decision. In terms of escalation strategy, make sure the correct people internally know they may be contacted for answers. This provides daily efficiency, but it’s also imperative if a crisis arises.
8. Encourage Days Off
We mentioned earlier having backup resources available for when your social team is out of the office, but make sure that team is actually taking off the time they deserve. Working in social media every day is demanding and stressful at times. It’s important that your social media managers recharge to prevent any burnout and potential turnover.
Taking time off can be less of a priority when travel and entertainment options are limited. But being recharged is important now more than ever.
If you don’t work in social media marketing, think about the times when you closed Facebook because some of the debates were just exhausting. Now imagine you can’t close it because it’s your job, and you run a large page that periodically attracts trolls for whatever reason. If you can picture how that would make you feel, the rationale for the eight steps listed above will become even clearer.
For assistance with your social media marketing efforts, contact our team today. Or keep yourself updated on the latest trends and new across the industry by subscribing to our bi-weekly newsletter below.
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