When someone asks what I do for a living, I respond that I manage social media for several businesses.
Invariably, I get one of three responses:
“Oh, so you like Facebook and Twitter all day?”
OR
“Oh, we have a social media presence set up, but we don’t really have much to post about…”
OR
“Oh, I really wish we had someone to manage our social media…”
The last response excites me, obviously, because I can give my quick pitch on why it’s a good idea to hire someone to do their social media.
Here’s what I tell people to think about when considering whether or not to hire someone for social media:
10. Your story is worth telling.
It all comes back to this: Too often businesses are sold a social media service they don’t really need and can’t really afford because they feel pressured to stay up on the latest technology trends.
When a business owner tells me their business isn’t “sexy enough” to be on social media, I’m not quick to force the idea on them. I mean, what if it’s just not worth the ROI?
I feel obligated to have an official stance that everyone and every business should be on social media—But what if it’s not worth your money and time? I see plenty of non-engaging social media content from businesses on a regular basis so it can be difficult to know if you will get the most value.
At this point, typically I ask a few more questions to help them decide. We’ll go through the rest of these briefly.
9. You Google key search phrases related to your business, and your competitor shows up first.
Depending how much you hate your competitors, this one will hit home for some people. It’s important to know that social media can help elevate natural search results AND the bond between social media and SEO is inextricably linked.
8. Your customers are already talking about your brand, on a community-created page.
Good or bad, at least your people are passionate enough to talk about their experience with your business. There are opportunities to address the negative, and reinforce the positive. Claiming your business pages is important. Otherwise, customers might not know how to reach you.
7. Your knowledge of social media is better than your actual social media.
Just because you don’t spend all day on Facebook like I do, doesn’t mean you don’t get that it’s important. Maybe you have ideas you want to explore but they keep getting pushed down your to-do list because something critical came up that day and had to be addressed immediately.
I love ideas, if you have some you want to explore, let’s talk.
6. Your current employees may actually drop dead if you give them another responsibility to manage.
Limited resources. Talk to your most trusted employee or manager. If they laugh maniacally in your face that they or the marketing person could handle yet another responsibility, but agree it’s probably a good idea for SOMEONE (us perhaps) to help out, let’s keep going.
5. You could make some room in the budget if the right opportunity presented itself.
If you absolutely don’t have the budget to hire someone, and aren’t willing to consider the investment, I’ll be glad to let you Google some excellent free tools that nobody at your office has time to mess with. It’s also important to consider potential hidden costs of a “free” service.
4. You have an important project coming up and need all hands on deck.
Perhaps you should hire someone to manage social media for a specific project or campaign. We have experience working with many different individuals and businesses to achieve project-specific goals. When there is an aggressive goal to reach, we aim even higher.
3. Your goal is vital to company success.
When it’s mission-critical for you to reach a certain goal, whether that is bringing in new business to keep operations afloat, or generating visits to a newly redesigned website, our team of digital marketing experts will work with you to ensure your goals are met to your satisfaction.
2. You do not lack personal resources, but your personal resources lack social media knowledge.
In this case, it may make most sense to hire someone for training or consulting purposes. Our social media team has led several training workshops to teach employees the best social media tips for beginners.
1. Your business is a highly-regulated industry and faces many compliance issues.
Financial and health care industry regulations evolve as rapidly as social media. Our team stays abreast of the latest industry trends and regulations to inform social media strategy. We can develop efficient processes with your compliance team to execute a smooth route of approval.
Social media marketing is a significant investment for your business. We take that investment seriously. It is our mission to make your brand shine online and bring in new business opportunities for you. The details of handling that is our expertise.