HOW SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES CAN BENEFIT YOUR BUSINESS

THE CHALLENGES POSED BY SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media can be a very rewarding area on which to focus your content marketing activities. However, there are many challenges associated with this, and getting results in this space can also be overwhelming and time-consuming.

If you feel like you’re not taking full advantage of the potential offered by the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, you could have a lot to gain from a dedicated social media management service.

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES CAN HELP YOU

To make the most of what a specialist social media manager can offer, first you should have a clear idea of the benefits available from these services.

Developing your strategy 

Social media marketing is a chaotic, competitive and fast-moving sector. If you want to succeed in this space, you need a strong strategy. This will help you build a detailed picture of the goals you want to achieve and the actions required to get there.

One of the key decisions a social media management firm will help you make, from a strategic perspective, is what platforms to use and the types of content to focus on. You should also have a plan for how often you should publish posts and at what times to earn the most engagement.

They will also be able to provide support when it comes to creating audience personas, which is vital if you want to be clear about your customers’ needs and your ability to meet them.

Time savings

The fundamental components of social media marketing – from devising your strategy and setting relevant goals to planning, producing and publishing content – all take time.

If you’re a growing business with many demands on your resources and various goals you want to achieve, it might be difficult to give your social media strategy the attention it needs to generate results.

A key benefit of using a social media management service is the fact that you can delegate a lot of the work involved to an experienced, capable partner. What’s more, a specialist agency will be able to do the trickiest jobs with greater speed and efficiency than you would be able to achieve yourself, which raises your overall productivity.

More value out of your budget

To demonstrate the long-term value and ROI of your marketing activities, you must be able to make effective use of the budget available to you.

When it comes to social media use, getting maximum value from your budget can be a challenge if you’re unfamiliar with this arena. You might not know where to start in looking for content types and campaign ideas that will deliver results, and you could have questions about analytics and measuring performance.

If you have an experienced and trusted agency on your side, you can make more informed decisions about things like social media advertising, which can deliver clear, measurable outcomes and excellent ROI when used in the right way.

Brand building

Building brand awareness is a key goal of many businesses engaged in social media marketing. The good news is there are many ways to make progress towards this objective. The bad news is it’s all too easy to waste time and money on projects that don’t deliver the returns you’re looking for.

A capable social media manager will be able to give you actionable advice and provide direction for your efforts to bring more attention to your brand.

This could include strategies and actions such as:

• Tapping into trends and breaking news to capture your audience’s interests
• Making sure all elements of your brand identity, iconography and messaging are consistent across each social media platform you use
• Adding some creativity and innovation to your social media content to help your brand stand out

Connection to your wider marketing strategy

Your social media activities shouldn’t exist in isolation. They should be connected to your broader marketing strategy and the other campaigns, content types and messages you’re putting out into the world.

If your brand identity on social media shares little connection with how you come across on your website and other channels, you’ll find it difficult to build awareness and deliver a compelling experience to your key target customers.

When you have a social media manager on hand to look after all of your social output and other aspects of your digital marketing, you can expect high levels of consistency and coherence across all platforms.

5 KEY SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES AVAILABLE FROM AGENCIES

Retaining an experienced agency partner to support your social media marketing and management gives you the opportunity to benefit from a wide range of services.

Content ideation

Providing a steady supply of relevant, engaging content is essential to any brand’s success on social media. It’s how you achieve goals such as:

• Building brand awareness
• Driving traffic to your website
• Showing what makes you distinct from your competitors
• Demonstrating the benefits of your product or service
• Gaining and maintaining customer trust

One of the first steps to building a strong library of marketing content is coming up with a range of ideas that will connect with your audience. That requires research, collaboration and some out-of-the-box thinking, all of which a social media agency can help you with.

Content production and scheduling

Once you’re ready with an arsenal of great content ideas, it’s time to think about the work involved in turning these ideas into reality.

It’s vital to ensure your content production process is driven by a focus on quality and maintaining the highest levels of relevance and value for your target audience. A social media management service will be able to help you by putting in the time and effort required to create powerful digital marketing materials. This could be anything from product videos to infographics that are ideal for sharing across your social channels.

You should also have a plan in place to schedule and publish content at the optimum times to connect with your customers.

Community management and engagement

There’s a lot of work involved in social media community management. If you’re not dedicating sufficient time and energy to the ongoing support and nurturing of your social followers, there’s a big risk of them losing interest in your brand or simply forgetting about you.

The effort that you have to put into this area of your marketing is certainly worthwhile, with potential benefits including:

• Increased brand awareness and engagement, which increases the likelihood of lead conversion and long-term advocacy
• Regular feedback from active users in your target audience, which makes content ideation easier
• Better understanding of your customers and their priorities

If you’re unable to give this job the attention it needs, it makes sense to have a dedicated social media manager do it for you.

Social listening

As well as building and engaging with your own community, you should be paying attention to conversations relevant to your brand that are taking place across the wider social media realm.

The most effective way to do this is with social listening. This allows you to keep track of all mentions of your brand, competitor names and related keywords across whichever social channel you choose.

As a result, you can gain deeper insights into customer opinions, preferences and expectations, which is hugely valuable not only to the marketing department, but to other teams within your business such as customer service and product development.

Social listening can also help you identify your ideal buyers’ most common questions and formulate answers to them in your marketing content.

Analytics 

Like any area of your digital marketing, you should know how your social media strategy is performing and the results it’s delivering for your business.

Conducting targeted analytics is vital if you want to demonstrate ROI and ensure that every big decision you make is backed up by data. It also enables you to set goals for your social marketing that fit into the SMART framework.

An experienced agency partner will be able to help you with various aspects of your analytics, from examining content results, competitor performance and audience trends to determining the effectiveness of your paid social media advertising.

THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR BUSINESSES

If you have the right tool available at the right time, your social media management will be significantly easier, more efficient and more productive.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management tool that can help you with a range of tasks, including publishing and scheduling, running analytics and conducting social listening.

Hootsuite is another popular platform that provides a similar service to Sprout Social, allowing you to keep track of all of your most important social media activities in one place.

Zoho

Another all-in-one tool, Zoho is worth considering if you’re looking for a convenient way to run your social activities alongside other core elements of your digital marketing.

It’s a comprehensive option, offering many other applications that could prove useful at some point in your marketing journey, including an ecommerce platform, a website builder and a live chat app.

Buffer

Buffer is a particularly useful tool for scheduling social media content to go live at the times you think will lead to the greatest engagement with your audience.

It’s also a good option if you have a tight budget, with a free plan available that lets you manage up to three social networks. Extra channels can then be added for $5 per month each.

Canva

If you’re keen to get stuck into creating your own visual content to distribute across your social networks, Canva should be one of your first ports of call.

It’s a free-to-use online graphic design tool that lets you create a wide range of exciting assets for your social media marketing, including individual posts, presentations, posters, videos and logos.

Tweet Deck

Twitter is an essential marketing tool for countless businesses, particularly those that want to get quick results from paid social media advertising.

There are many supporting solutions that can help you get the best out of Twitter, including TweetDeck, which lets you see numerous timelines in one place, and also makes it easier to manage multiple accounts.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a tool you might want to consider if one of your top priorities is to understand how your business is perceived in the social media space.

It provides solutions designed to help you gain insights from the vast number of conversations taking place online. You can then incorporate this information across the entirety of your content marketing strategy.

GET EXPERT HELP WHEN YOU NEED IT

Picking the right tool for each aspect of your social media management is important, but it’s not always easy, especially if you’re busy with other elements of your digital marketing.

The best course of action could be to delegate this task to a trusted agency partner, so you can focus on other priorities and feel confident that your social networks are being properly managed and looked after.

Axonn has helped a range of clients in various industries with their social media marketing. Contact us to start a conversation about how we could support you.