5 Reasons my clients hire a social media marketer
When writing this post, I started to outline the reasons why I thought people hired a social media marketer to run their social media accounts. I thought I knew the reasons, they were all obvious right? Well, there was only one way to find out, so I asked my existing clients why they hired me, and I will share the feedback I received. If any of these reasons strike a chord, then who knows, maybe we can work together soon!
Time
This was the most popular answer that running a business is already hard enough and takes time (and a lot of it!) That is something that is also true for running social media accounts. You will need to find the time to create posts, blogs, graphics, videos etc… Then you will need to post them on all the platforms you use, maybe it’s just Facebook, maybe it is also Twitter, Instagram maybe you also post stories now too? Its not over yet, then you need to engage with comments, questions and feedback, all whilst dealing with customer service questions that come through all day, everyday!
Maybe that doesn’t seem too difficult? Well it doesn’t stop there. How did the posts perform? Did they have the desired effect? Now it’s time to review your insights and analytics. This is a great way to see what is working and what is connecting with your audience. You also need to see what your competitors are doing, are their posts performing better than yours, what are they doing differently? Once you have analysed the data, it’s time to go again…. What should I post today?
Strategy
Many businesses I speak to say that they post on social media. They post images to Instagram and Facebook and they share blogs on Twitter. When I ask them what they are trying to achieve they find it harder to answer. Matching your social media strategy to your business goals is key to getting the most out of social media for your business. Even if you have very specific goals, you may not be able to achieve the desired effect on social media knowing the best route to take. For example if you want to push your current promotions then social media can be a great channel to use, but just pushing these promotions over and over again will not have the desired results.
With social media you need to give value, give something without asking for something back. This can come in the form of entertainment or information, it can also be a question. It may not surprise you that people on social media love to share things, so why not ask them to share things about themselves? A general rule of thumb with social media is to be promotional every 4-5 posts. Over promotion is one of the biggest reason for people unfollowing companies on social media. If you are giving value on a regular basis, then people will not mind promotional posts, which will help you achieve your business goals.
Expertise
We are a specialist social media agency, which means that all our activity is done using social networks. What does this mean? Well it means that we are constantly creating, posting and experimenting with content and analysing the results. We do this all day everyday on multiple platforms for many different types of businesses.
Whilst a post-graduate degree in marketing and 15 years experience within marketing can come in useful, nothing is a substitute for being at the business end. The reason this is so important is because social media networks change at breakneck speed. Something that was working well 3 months ago, will not necessarily work now. That is because social networks are always changing their algorithms so that you are delivered the best content and keep returning to their platform, and although the algorithms can be frustrating at times, the end game is that great content will always win and that is a good thing.
Knowledge
There isn’t a week that passes without at least one Facebook, Instagram and Twitter update or change. Keeping up to date with these changes is part of a social media marketers daily routine. I often speak with people who say, we do “like and share” competitions and they do well, but what they don’t realise is the long term damage they can do to your pages reach going forwards after Facebook clamped down on engagement bait.
We also use the latest research on how hashtags work on each network if at all. Another advantage is that we are part of worldwide communities of other social media marketers where we can share what is working and what is not performing as well, we can also get quick responses if we are having technical issues with any networks.
Peace of mind
This is a simple one, but one that is shared by most of my clients. We know that there will be regular updates on our page without having to worry. If we need something sharing or promoting we can email, call or message you and you will share it at the most appropriate time.
If any of the above points connect with you, then get in touch. We are always happy to meet for coffee to talk about all things social media.
