Are you new to social media marketing? Are you wondering how to establish and manage your personal or your brand’s social media presence? Then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve put together this guide to social media management for beginners to answer all the pressing questions that you have.
What Is Social Media Management?
First things first. If you are a beginner digital marketer or social media influencer, you might be wondering what on earth social media management is.
Well, this is a relatively simple – but crucially important – concept in digital marketing. It concerns and deals with how you go about everything related to your existence on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and others. Anything and everything connected to your behavior on social media platforms which you can think of is part of managing social media. This includes but is not limited to:
- Coming up with a social media strategy and calendar
- Creating content to post on social media
- Scheduling social media posts
- Crossposting
- Interacting with the audience of your social media accounts
- Connecting and communicating with other social media users
- Building the right team to support your efforts
Why Is Managing Social Media So Important?
Now that you know what social media management is, you might be wondering why it is so important for the success of any business, no matter how big or small, in the 21st century. There are many reasons why you should optimize the managing of your social media accounts and posts. Here are the most significant ones.
First and foremost, no matter what industry you are in, chances are that the vast majority of your customers are on social media. Thus, social media marketing is becoming one of the most effective and most powerful lead generation strategies nowadays. If you want you and your business to be taken seriously and to be trusted, you have to excel at your social media presence.
Second, a social media strategy is an integral part of any company’s digital marketing efforts. You cannot just create a website, post blogs there, and expect your business to thrive and succeed. To give your blog posts maximum exposure, you need to share them on social media sites as well.
Third, social media marketing is a very cost-effective way to generate leads and convert them into customers. With just a couple of hundred of dollars a month, you can run an affordable, yet sufficient social media strategy with a high return. Actually, depending on your situation, you might be able to bring your expenditure to virtually zero.
How to Manage Social Media Presence in the Best Way?
Now that you are convinced of the importance of social media management, it’s time to have a look at how you can make sure to optimize your strategy. In our beginner’s guide on managing your social media accounts, we’ve compiled the best 8 tips in this regard:
1. Put Your Customers at the Core of Your Social Media Strategy
Establishing a social media presence over several different networks is not and should not be a goal in and of itself. Social media management is rather a tool than an objective. Everything that you do on your social media accounts should be determined and led by your target customers, their interests, and habits.
That’s why the first step to the successful management of social media accounts is researching and understanding your audience. You should find the answers to the following questions:
- Who are your target social media users and ideal customers?
- What social media platforms are they most active on?
- What type of content are they interested in?
- What format of content do they enjoy the most?
- When are they most active on social media?
Knowing the answers to all these questions will help you put together the best possible social media strategy for your business. Once you’ve done that, all that is left is to start creating content, scheduling social media posts, tracking their performance, and readjusting your plan when needed.
2. Value Quality over Quantity
Just as with everything else in digital marketing, quality is more important than quantity. Trying to capture the largest possible audience and keep your users engaged by scheduling social media posts all the time will not do it. First of all, social media algorithms are getting smarter, so they do not give preference to accounts posting all the time if the quality is questionable. Second, your social media users will appreciate the fact that you have put the time and effort necessary to create high-quality content which is unique compared to the plethora of social media posts being scheduled every single day.
Moreover, once you’ve created a social media marketing strategy after studying your target audience, you should make sure that every single piece of content which you produce and share contributes to achieving the goals set in your strategy. Your social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube as well as on any other social media platforms should be logically connected to one another and serve the same business goal.
3. Choose the Most Relevant Social Media Platforms and Optimize Your Accounts
As a beginner social media marketer, you cannot expect to be able to conquer all social media networks at once. As you might have noticed, the majority of social media influencers focus on two-= to three platforms at the most. This makes social media management more doable – and much less discouraging and stressful – when you first get started in this aspect of digital marketing.
Based on the results of the research that you’ve done on your target users, you should choose a couple of social media sites to establish your presence on. An excellent tip is to choose platforms that are optimal for different content so that you can diversify your social media strategy until you figure out what works best for you and your customers. For example, go for Facebook (where you can share virtually any digital content), Twitter (where you can post short messages and media), Instagram (where you can share photos, infographics, other images, and videos), and YouTube (where you can give your video marketing skills a go).
As a beginner social media marketer, don’t overdo it by creating suboptimal accounts on too many networks that you won’t be able to manage effectively.
Once again, quality over quantity is the key to success in social media management.
4. Schedule Social Media Posts Regularly
Another crucially important element of the social media management strategy of any beginner as well as experienced digital marketer should be scheduling posts on a regular basis. You should create a social media schedule as part of your marketing strategy and stick to it. To make this as efficient as possible, use a social media manager tool which incorporates a calendar, like Studiorific.
When you are building a reputation on social media channels, users will start expecting new content from you at certain intervals. If you are really good at it and get some followers, they will be actually looking forward to seeing your new social media posts. And the last thing you want is to disappoint your potential customers before even converting them.
That’s why scheduling posts on social media should follow a strict schedule. You can even make this schedule known to your users. For example, if you create videos for YouTube and post them every Wednesday, you can conclude your videos with “See you next Wednesday with another video from us!”
5. Optimize Your Timing
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, different social media users are active at different days of the week and different times of the day. For example, if your product targets business owners, it’s best to schedule social media posts for Monday morning or Wednesday morning. On the other hand, if you market leisure products, your audience will most likely be around on the weekend.
Base your decision when to share your content on social media accounts on research. Then integrate it into your social media strategy and stick to it.
6. Build a Community
Being a social media influencer is not like being an authoritarian dictator. It is not a one-way street. To succeed, you should build a community and be an active part of it.
It does not suffice to post your content and hope that customers will immediately start coming to you. You have to interact with them and be actively engaged by listening to what they have to say. Read their comments and respond to them; see if they like or dislike your posts; check what type of content they share; etc. Moreover, you should post polls and surveys each once in a while to show your users that you really care about their opinion and to understand what they think and what they need so that you can provide it to them.
In addition, don’t limit social media management to your own accounts only. You should be a part of the wider community on the platforms on which you are active. Connect with other businesses and influencers in your industry and explore opportunities to cooperate. Comment on their social media posts and share them on your accounts when you believe they will be of value to your users. Soon others will start doing the same with your posts.
7. Track the Performance of Your Social Media Posts
Now that your social media strategy is underway, it is not enough to keep scheduling posts without caring about the performance of the old ones. Tracking how your previous posts are doing, whether they are getting the expected attention, and if they are attracting your target audience is key for success. This is the only way to know if your strategy is working.
Start tracking the reactions, likes, comments, and shares of your social media posts as soon as they go live. Analyze what content, what format, which network, and what time of posting produce the best results. If you are not satisfied with the achievement, adjust and track again.
8. Utilize Social Media Management Tools
To execute your strategy efficiently and comprehensively, you need to employ the best social media management tools in 2020. For instance, a social media scheduler like Studiorific will allow you to have your calendar filled weeks in advance so that you don’t have to worry about staying up late at night to post at the best time for your audience across the ocean.
Another tool of great importance is a social media calendar. This feature helps you visualize your social media marketing plan for a quick and easy analysis. Being able to see all your published and scheduled posts on a single dashboard will help you decide if your strategy is well balanced. Neither posting too often nor posting too rarely will bring the desired effect.
Social media management is nothing overly complicated or unattainable. However, doing it in the right, effective way requires diligent research, good planning, commitment, and using the right social media tools. Sign up for Studiorific today to start scheduling posts on social media at the best time for your audiences.
Related: How to Add Social Media Accounts on Your Studiorific Dashboard
Related: How to Schedule Social Media Posts Through Your Studiorific Account
