One Of The Greatest Misconceptions About Social Media Management.
Its no secret that the Social Media Revolution is upon us. One of the things that is now fact is that the era of ‘’Pay to Play’is upon us too. Whilst this is true, there are some fundamentals that will always be true no matter which direction Social Media takes or how many more new social media platforms enter the arena. One of the undeniable truths is that with Social Media, Content is not only king but its a big determinant of who visits what page and who doesn’t.
Interestingly this week, Hilton Hotels Australia announced a new recruitment campaign to recruit via Tik Tok. Despite the controversy surrounding Tik Tok when it comes to national security in a plethora of jurisdictions that did not deter them. Applicants for various roles have been asked to put in their applications by doing a Tik Tok video. It remains to be seen how this campaign will fare.
Today I want to address something that I’m finding a lot. There seem to be many who somehow think that Social Media Management is about posting content daily! Yes, there is Content Creation, repurposing of Content etc. However, this is just merely scratching the surface. Of course this will hugely depend on an organisation’s or personal brand’s needs etc. You will be amazed whats out there. Well the reality is that if any institution is going to be engaging Social Media or deploying resources towards Social Media Management they want to see ROI. I’m aware some companies and personal brands grew without social media and came on social media whilst they were already ‘’forces to be reckoned with’. Some of those are keeping a Social Media presence as a standard thing without putting much effort on growth etc. Some companies use Social Media as an additional means to engage with their customers. Many customers at some point with some of the telcos, knew that with some companies if you tried calling and not getting results, trying Social Media would get results. Naturally those customers got responses. So depending with industry, some companies use social media hugely to communicate with customers without any ‘’aggressive marketing’’ as per se.
However, for the most part, Social Media management has become more advanced from the old days and early days of just posting Content and seeing who ‘’reacts’’ . Certainly evolved from those days of bragging to peers how many ‘’Facebook’’ friends one had etc. Many of those things have turned out to be vanity metrics, more about that later, in a separate post.
Due to the fact that dedicated companies and personal brands who are using Social Media, want ROI. This means a true Social Media Manager has to be comfortable with numbers, the data and its meaning. Not only that, things like Customer Journey have to make sense. More so, if one is going to be aggressive and launch marketing campaigns whether its for E Commerce, personal brands etc. One should be able to run ‘’tests’’. The days of ‘’flying blind’’ are basically over. Sometimes just a little ‘’test’’ will let you know which audience is better as an example and sometimes which image is better. This in the long run can even cut costs by huge margins. Based on the data collected, one can be in a position to make better choices.
Execution
There are things that one will only learn through execution. Actually doing the work and seeing the results. Not only that, just like with anything, the more one gets familiar with things the better they can perform. In saying that, one of the key fundamentals with that is that an organisation’s over arching goals and short term targets will have to be factored in. More so, for big brands, small business, personal brands and the lot that want to scale. In a nutshell Social Media Management goes beyond just posting cute pictures, funny videos or education pieces. It has become a key part of both branding and marketing and of course communication.
For more on the Digital Economy see Unleash the Book Within.
Regards
Wis
( Multi Award Winning Author, Book Coach)