Social media marketing and customer service have become increasingly more important in the online sphere, and tools that support these metrics have grown right alongside them. Now more than ever, businesses are taking the management of their social media pages more seriously. Growth in both industries is a net positive for social media marketing and social platforms.
Although most companies are aware of the need for social media management software, it’s not always clear how these tools will support their business goals. If you’re interested in utilizing and investing in social media management tools for your business, you first need to consider if you’re ready for that switch. Let’s look at how management software may help your company.
What is Social Media Management?
Social media management can mean the following:
- A process for managing the act of marketing on social media.
- Software that simplifies or automates that process.
- The work of managing multiple social media platforms at once.
A social media management tool encompasses every facet of running the marketing portion of social media, from beginning to end. Some companies offer more than one software within their tools. For example, Falcon.io’s social media CRM (customer relationship management) software combines content management, web insights, advertising, and more all in one program.
What A Typical Social Media Management Process Looks Like
A social media marketer or manager sets similar goals: to respond quickly to followers, engage with marketers/influences and create content. When used together, each task will improve a brand's social media metrics, but how does the marketer/manager accomplish these goals?
Marketers will start the process by separating their goals based on the day, week, and month.
Daily Tasks: Quickly React and Respond
A daily social media management task should be easy to accomplish and simple to measure. As stated, simple goals like engaging with your followers in under 60 minutes, speaking to influencers about a collaboration, and sharing new, exciting content needs daily upkeep. A business that never responds to its customers is unlikely to succeed.
Although most social media management tools simplify this process, you still need to set aside 2-3 hours a day on daily tasks alone. Don’t multitask, or you’ll decrease your productivity.
Weekly Tasks: Monitoring and Scheduling
On top of daily tasks, each social media profile also needs to accomplish separate weekly goals. Here’s a sample schedule to show you what that may look like for your business.
- Monday: Check last week's social media metrics and improve on these numbers.
- Tuesday: Reschedule older posts from Instagram, Facebook, and the blog.
- Wednesday: Update social media ads (change keywords, headings, etc.).
- Thursday: Browse current social media trends to find out what’s popular.
- Friday: Research for next week's content (photos, keywords, trends).
Brand monitoring takes precedence over any other weekly goal, and this is where your metrics come in. Social CRMs are capable of searching your blog’s name, brand’s name, and your personal name, even if there’s no hashtag in front of the keyword or words are misspelled.
Knowing what your customers want will help you create content they’re more likely to engage with, including trending photos, keywords, and hashtags. You’ll have an easier time curating your social media content towards your followers if you track metrics, ads, and trends.
Monthly Tasks: Monitoring and Scheduling x2
Your company's monthly goals should look similar to your weekly tasks, except you’ll set different goals based on your previous month’s metrics. If you’re checking your metrics weekly, you can accurately see how well your social content is performing. Still, you need to monitor how your content performs over a long period of time to determine its staying power.
Monthly tasks are all about adjusting your goals for the next month and planning for the future. You still need to plan your content and adjust paid advertisements, but do so with a later-future lens. Ask yourself if you can reach your goals for next month based on your current metrics. If not, how can you adjust your spending, content, or customer engagement, to make it happen?
How to Use Social Media Management Tools Effectively
When a marketer wants to manage a social media platform at a high level, they’ll use every resource in their toolbelt. In this case, social media management software is the toolbelt, the tools, and the journeyman who guides the apprentice towards bettering their efforts.
Now that you know what your daily, weekly, and monthly social media schedules may look like, you can effectively implement social media management tools into your business model.
1. Plan Ahead: Use Calendars
Social media management tools have built-in calendars that connect to your social media accounts. If you stay organized and upload your content to the calendar in an easy-to-use, agreed-upon format, your social media posts will appear on your profile right on schedule.
2. Collaborate With Your Team
Your social media marketing team needs to be on the same page to execute successful campaigns. Therefore, it’s essential to set up weekly meetings to discuss current and future projects. In your meeting, talk about your projected workflow and deadlines for each task.
3. Create a Posting Schedule
Each social media platform has recommended posting rates, times, and demographics. Posting schedules are necessary to keep up with the ever-changing algorithm. Use free time in your weekly task calendar to allow for reshares, campaign posts, blog content, and more.
4. Monitor Engagement
Engagement flows in after you gain followers, but you need to stay diligent once your content goes live. After a user posts a comment, shares your content, or tags your brand, your team needs to act immediately to keep that new user interested, as they may turn into customers.
5. Read Your Reports and Improve
Every social media metric connects to a goal you or other businesses may have. For example, to improve engagement, you need to increase brand awareness on social media.
Now that you have this information in hand, you can start automating specific processes or focus on customer service. Since your users and followers are the primary source of your engagement, focusing on making them happy is a fast and effective way of improving metrics.
Guest post courtesy of Jessica Perkins