Social media management: Everything you need to know

So, you have finally started taking social media as a growth tool and not a mere 5-minute break app. Perhaps you dream of making a fortune with the power of social media. Or simply, you want to impress your boss or client with a killer social media strategy deck. 

Wherever you are in the journey of exploring social media as a steroid to your growth, this is the ONLY blog you need. 

By the end of this quick 15-minute read, you will be equipped with a strong foundation in social media management and the power to take over the social media world!

What Is Social Media Management?

Social media management is a marketing process loop that involves devising a strategic plan, executing the plan and incorporating analytical insights to improve your strategy.

Plan - Execute - Improvise - Repeat 

The process involves:

1. Forming a social media strategy
2. Creating media assets
3. Scheduling and publishing consistently
4. Deploying organic and paid growth tactics
5. Analyzing insights & adjusting strategy

The Evolution of Social Media Management

What started as a mere way to connect with friends and family has now turned into a sophisticated field in itself. Social media management is now not only taught as a separate subject in marketing degrees but also has a global community thriving to make the best use of this (relatively) new marketing channel. 

From one person doing it all to a large dedicated team to several smart tools aiding in getting this channel right, social media management has greatly evolved in the past decade and continues to thrive.

Using powerful tools like Highperformr, social media management is only going to be more effective than ever. 

Benefits of Social Media Management

Today, with 4.89 billion users globally, social media has become unquestionably one of the most important marketing tools. 

Every single one of us has our profiles up there on one or many of the platforms. However, managing your social media as a marketing tool is another ball game altogether. As complex this game is, the rewards make it worth playing:

Brand building: 

Your social media film = your brand’s personality on the internet. Align your social media strategy with the brand strategy to create consistent brand communication. 

Tangible results: 

Unlike other channels, social media efforts are measurable thanks to the native insights feature. This means you have a chance to see patterns in your audience’s behavior and keep feeding more relevant content.

Strong customer engagement: 

With today’s attention span of consumers, having an intimate relationship with customers is non-negotiable. With channels like Instagram, you have direct access to the customers and can engage with them one-on-one to build a loyal community. 

Now that you know WHY you must focus on social media management, let’s move on to WHAT needs to be done as a social media manager.

Roles & Responsibilities of a Social Media Manager

A Social Media Manager is responsible for planning, executing and analyzing social media campaigns. 

As a social media manager, you will be wearing both, creative and analytical hats. 

What does a social media manager do?

1. Develop a social media strategy
2. Conceptualize creative campaigns
3. Create various assets that align with brand guidelines
4. Coordinate with stakeholders 
5. Schedule & publish content
6. Manage online reputation
7. Build a thriving community
8. Analyze and report performance
9. Regularly update strategy based on insights
10. Collaborate and manage team
11. Cultivate a spirit of innovation and adaptation in the team

They are responsible for:

1. Engagement rate: Likes, comments, shares, and overall engagement
2. Follower growth: Increase in followers + rate of growth
3. Brand mentions: Frequency & sentiment of brand mentions 
4. Campaign ROI: Tangible and intangible returns on specific campaigns
5. Traffic generation: Amount and quality of traffic driven to website via social media

Now that you know WHAT you will be doing as a social media manager, let’s learn HOW to deliver an all-encompassing social media experience.

Developing a Social Media Strategy

Social media management starts with a great but DOABLE strategy. 

Being consistent is the number one key to growth on any social media channel so your first priority is to make a strategy that is executable with the available resources.

Before you start creating your social media strategy, here’s a little but very important preparatory work you can do:

1. Conduct a social media audit

• Take a good look at the current status of your social media accounts. Note the metrics of the past 30 days.
• Audit all the assets you already have - event photos, videos, graphics, etc. so you can plan how to reuse them later.

2. Do peer analysis

• Study your competitors. Look what they are and aren’t doing.
• Create a SWOT analysis to make an informed decision for your brand.

3. Determine budget allocation

• Break down your budget into various activities like asset creation, paid collaborations, giveaways, and paid ads.
• Do make sure to keep some contingency money aside.

Once you are ready with these basics, let’s go into more detailed things to do.

Establishing Goals and Objectives

When drafting your goals, you can follow the SMART goals formula to ensure you are always setting meaningful goals. Let’s see an example of each.

Not an effective goal: 

“Increase our brand's Instagram following to enhance brand visibility and audience engagement.”

Enter the SMART formula: 

S - Specific

M - Measurable

A - Actionable

R - Relevant

T - Time-bound

Effective goal using the SMART system:

"Within the next 6 months (time-bound), increase our brand's Instagram following(Specific) by (Measurable), through a combination of enhanced content strategy, regular engagement with our audience, and targeted Instagram marketing campaigns (Actionable), to strengthen our brand visibility and audience engagement (Relevant)."

Remember that your social media goals should always align with your overall brand, marketing and business objectives. 

Identifying Your Target Audience

Create personas

Buyer persona is a detailed information sheet of someone who represents your target audience. 

• Create an imaginary profile (keeping your actual clientele in mind) - Include their demographics, professional and personal details, pain points, motivations, etc. 
• Analyze their social media patterns - how they consume content, what kind, when, whom they connect with, what hashtags they use, which influencers they follow, etc.

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Find them on social media platforms

Making a buyer persona will guide you where to look for them. 

Let’s say you are a skincare brand. Here are some of the ways you can find your audience on social media:

• Hashtags - Search #skincare to find people who post about skincare. Then, skip the brand accounts, and engage with personal accounts if they fit in your TG.
• Competitor’s account - Keep an eye on your competitors’ followers - the ones who engage with their products might engage with yours too.
• Influencer’s account - People who follow a skincare influencer will most likely be interested in checking your account. Engage, engage, engage!

Tap into your existing customer base

You can also tap into your existing customer base and encourage them to follow your social media accounts. 

Pro Tip: Don’t push your audience, rather pull them with interesting content, exciting contests or valuable information.

Once they follow your account, engage with them meaningfully by being prompt with comment responses, resharing brand mentions and shoutouts, inviting them to collaborate, etc.

Creating a Content Plan

A content plan outlines what, when, and where you'll post. It should align with your goals and speak to your audience's interests and needs. 

WHAT: Create content buckets

The first thing to do is create a list of content buckets. In other words, identify the core topics you want to talk about. For example, if you are a skincare brand, your content buckets will include topics like skincare routines, nutrition, do’s and don’ts of skincare, skin type, skin problems and solutions, etc.

HOW: Have a mix of content formats and themes.

Once you identify your content buckets, explore how you can creatively engage your audience using various formats such as vertical videos, carousels, blog articles, GIFs, etc. Also think about themes such as giveaways, educational posts, aesthetic posts, etc.

Having a variety of content will keep your audience engaged. Our article on Social Media Post Ideas would be a great thought-starter for you.

Pro Tip: Showcase what’s your brand vibe with a thoughtfully planned Instagram grid like the below “puzzle” design.

WHEN: Plan & schedule your campaign

Lastly, I always like to think in campaigns as opposed to spending an entire afternoon brainstorming one-off posts. Come up with interesting umbrella campaigns which can run for as short as a week and as long as a month. One campaign will have a set of communication points and all of your posts will build around these points. 

Use a hybrid of AI and your own creativity to create engaging content based on your campaign.

Once your assets are ready, schedule the content using analytical insights like when is your TG most active on social media, which days you get the most engagement, etc. 

Highperformr is the perfect tool you need to amplify your social game on X (Twitter). You can generate fresh content using our powerful AI writing tool, schedule tweets and threads in advance, engage with your audience from within the platform and get powerful analytical insights.  

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Managing Your Social Media Accounts

You will want to choose more than one social media platform to get the maximum ROI out of your content efforts. Juggling multiple accounts requires a proper social media management routine. 

Let’s begin from the beginning. 

Choosing the Right Platforms

You won’t sell a comb to a bald person right? You have to find the right market to break in. In social media terms, you need to find the platform where your TG is spending their time. 

Financial products will not sell on Pinterest

DIY ideas will fly well on LinkedIn even though your TG is using the platform. 

Spend some time researching where your TG is looking for a brand like you and be there.

Pro tip: Don’t kick out Facebook just yet, 70% of Americans still use Facebook.

Creating Engaging Content

In my opinion, your TG will come to you if you are putting out the right content. Once again, use your research skills to find out the kind of content your audience is consuming. 

Your content should be doing either of the following:

• Educate
• Entertain
• Engage
• Inspire

Your audience will tell you what they like, you only need to LISTEN better. This, my friends, is called Social listening in the fancy marketing world.

Scheduling Posts in Advance

I would be lying if I said I have published everything I have created. The truth is, it’s easier to keep hoarding the good stuff than share it out there. 

Either you contemplate on whether what you have created is any good or time would pass and that idea you had while in the shower would remain in the archives of your notes forever. 

It’s probably the best advice on social media management you will get today - SCHEDULE your posts! 

There are many scheduling tools you can use for this. In fact, the social media platforms are now coming up with their own native solutions. 

For more advanced control on your scheduling game, you can use tools like Highperformr which allows you to not only schedule your tweets in threads but also choose to delay each message by a minute so it doesn’t shout “automated”. 

What’s more, you can also schedule reposts to boost engagement.

Building an Online Community

If you have already mastered creating engaging content, you will have tons of comments and tagged posts to respond to. Make sure your audience feels heard and seen. 

• Respond to their comments
• Reshare the posts where they mention you
• Reply to their DMs

…. all while maintaining your communication guidelines.

Building a thriving community will get you loyal followers who will later become your brand advocates without spending a dime.

Analyzing Performance 

Most of the social media tools now have native analytical tools for you to keep track of what’s working and where you’re headed. 

In my opinion, if you want to beat your competitors, you need more advanced tools to measure your efforts. Such specialized tools can measure your social media performance over time and provide additional insights such as average brand mentions per month, track hashtags, provide downloadable reports and more.

For example, Highperformr’s AI coach gives valuable insights based on your numbers and your marketing goals.

Team Member Management

To run a basket of social media tools smoothly, you need a strong team with various skill sets. Here’s a list of your dream team. 

Certainly! Here's a concise overview of each role in a social media team:

• Social Media Manager: Leads strategy, oversees campaign success, and coordinates team efforts across platforms.
• ‍Content Creator/Strategist: Crafts engaging and platform-specific content aligned with strategic goals.
• ‍Community Manager: Manages audience engagement, fosters community, and handles social customer service.
• ‍Graphic Designer: Creates visually appealing graphics and videos for social media content.
• ‍Copywriter: Writes compelling copy that resonates with the target audience and reflects the brand's voice
• ‍SEO Specialist: Ensures content is optimized for search engines and social media algorithms.
• ‍Social Media Ad Specialist: Manages and optimizes paid advertising campaigns on social platforms.
• ‍Influencer Marketing Expert: Builds and maintains relationships with influencers for brand promotion.

If you are going to produce a lot of videos, you will need a basic production team as well.

Remember, this is really a dream team, not every company will have one. You will most likely start as a one-man show who will look after everything and gradually build a team that takes your social game to the next level.

Whatever the case may be, take it as an opportunity and learn!

Reputation Management

Humans are copycats by birth. They will trust some stranger’s review more than they will trust a reputable brand’s promise. It’s always a great idea to maintain a good reputation online to ensure that your audience trusts you.

Ask for reviews with tact

The way you ask for a review makes a world of difference. Encourage your customers to leave reviews in a way that feels genuine. This can be achieved through post-purchase emails or a call after the product or service has been delivered. And don’t forget to flaunt a good review on your social media, it’s a direct proof of how good your service is and leads to a positive brand image in the minds of the audience.

Respond to both the good and the bad

Don’t ignore the bad comments or reviews, instead reply politely with an actionable step. Invite them to get on call to resolve their issues or assure them to have things fixed in a set time. Your tone of response will calm the angry or disappointed customer and allow time to mitigate the problem.

Be proactive about risk management

Sometimes, things can go out of our control on social media- whether it’s someone picking things out of context, or making a mountain out of anthill. At such times, be quick about managing a spark before it turns into a wildfire.

Social Media Management for Agencies

When you are managing social media accounts for many, making SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) backed and updated with data will help you deliver high-quality results each time. Here are some tips to get you started:

Maintain an asset library

Creating a common place for your creative teams to add all their creative assets will create a living library of assets that can be remixed and reused many times. Graphic files, photos, video templates, copies, icons, hand-drawn assets, UIs, codes - all of these can be added to your asset library.

Master social media management tools

Be on top of all resources you will need including social media management tools, people, free software, marketplaces, books, etc. Master one or two key tools that help you achieve your social media goals faster and more efficiently. 

Create an approval process

Before picking up a single project, align your approval process to ensure the right people are given the right accountability. Remember, too many cooks tend to spoil the dish so involve only a few but strong checkpoints for any approvals. Insist the client on giving you a SPOC (Single point of contact) from their end so you receive collated feedback from them.

Set a standard price structure

Why reinvent the wheel? Set a price structure for the services you will be offering to anyone who comes to you so you don’t have to sit and ponder over it again and again.

An agency is as good as the systems they set and the rules they break. 

(mic drop)

Conclusion

Too much to take in, right? Well, this is just the beginning my friend. The social media world is constantly changing and upgrading and you have to be on top of trends and algorithms. All being said, it’s an extremely satisfying role to play in the corporate world. It’s far from boring and comes with an amazing bunch of creative possibilities. So embark on your journey with the knowledge you have gained today and keep getting better at it as you learn more. 

Until next time, 

Ciao!