8 Reasons Why You Need A Social Media Manager
Social Media is transforming the way the world does business. Today the implications are huge and the prizes are enormous for those businesses & individuals who handle it right. However a few organizations in Kenya today can actually show tangible results on their efforts on social media. Why? Most organizations jumped into the social media bandwagon without a strategy, a budget to sustain it and a dedicated social media team! Social media marketing eliminates the middlemen, providing brands the unique opportunity to have a direct relationship with their customers. So how and why are most companies not taking the full advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? Most companies have outsourced management of part or the whole of social media to agencies and individuals while others have hired interns to handle their brands & companies. You need to hire a social media manager, coordinator or a community manager etc whichever name you give the position ASAP to spearhead your efforts and ensure your presence makes business sense to YOU! Here are a few reasons you may consider creating this role/job in your organization.
1. Social Media
Belongs to the Whole Business.
When I
like a brand or follow a company on Twitter I am connecting to the business for
a reason/s which varies amongst various social media users. So is your business providing a variety of
content/information when and in formats that all these users need it? Do they
find it valuable and reliable? Is it provided in a timely manner? Who have you
given the task to be your ‘voice’ on social media? Social media is customer
service, sales, HR, legal, research and development PR & communications and
marketing all combined so you need someone with the right mix of skills who
understands what it takes to shoulder the communication of a brand on social
media. Firms need to have a professional with the right skills and experience
to ensure a return on investment in their social media efforts! Most of the
social media is under corporate communications and PR while others use it for
marketing however there’s something in it for every department in your
organization on social media. You can do a customer survey, hire and recruit
talent through social media, showcase products and services, handle inquiries,
get people involved in your CSR activities, the sales department may use it for
prospecting and sales! You need a social media manager to ensure all these
departments benefit from social media channels.
2. Emphasis on the Manager- Not an Intern
A lot of
companies think that hiring an intern (an unpaid one at that) to create a
social media presence can get them instant kudos online. Since no one cares or
understands what the intern does when it comes to doing the reports, the
‘social media guy’ becomes both the accountant and the auditor of his work!
Why? If he says you are doing well, he will pull up data and evidence to show
that! Hire a manager to be the backbone for your social media team and then
focus on the interns to bring in and train. Also, having a manager is extremely
helpful when you need someone to be accountable for major responsibilities and
overseeing daily up-to-date content. In the end, the winner is content; good,
sharable and consumer-driven content will allow you to have a broader spectrum
of information thus an easier way to connect with your key stakeholders and
community online! So do you have a content strategy? Do you have a team to
create, share, distribute, optimize and manage this content? All this needs a
manager!
3. The Workload!
Managing
social media corporate accounts can be overwhelming as it is a 24/7/365 days
job! It’s not something an organization should take a break from, you need
consistency and monitoring brands and conversations around your campaign and
brand touch points. In most cases you
need a content plan, a breakdown and a maintenance schedule for these
platforms. For busy accounts, you need a team to work in shifts especially
where you do customer care on social media. By content I don’t mean posting motivational quotes on a Monday morning
and TGIF on Friday to engage users!!
(What do users learn about your business
from quotes?). Social media is now
part of the search engines, people are looking for information daily about
products or services that you offer. One or two people cannot engage and manage
day to day execution as well as draft, edit and post content across all online
channels. You need a social media team with defined job descriptions and
working under a manager to plan, formulate strategy, monitor social media, spot
trends, disseminate reports to various business units to guide decision making,
review tools and advice the business on adoption, train staff on communication
on new media and be tasked with managing brand reputation on social media. You
need someone who can handle blogger relations and outreach, keep tabs on the
influencers and track conversations on blogs, message boards and basically the
whole social media space. That needs a social media manager!
4.
Presence Vs
Integration
Creating a
facebook page is establishing presence which doesn’t mean that the firm has
integrated social media into their business! An organization needs a social
media manager to assist in coordinating special events
e.g. launches, sponsorships, CSR events etc as such information needs to be
shared with the community. So you need a manager to formulate a pre, during and
post launch activities and communication strategies. You need someone who
integrates the media plan, PR plan and the experiential activities planned to
his plan on social media. The
manager should also be a close liaison with other departments in
the organization and agencies to help integrate social media into their efforts. The social
media manager should also help integrate
corporate communications into social media in support of the overall
communications objectives of the firm. The feedback received on social media
also needs to be analyzed and shared with various departments as per the needs
of each. This way then, an organization
can say they have integrated social media into their business!
5.
Social Media isn’t
a FAD!
For the
first time in history, media technology, tools and channels for sharing
information has been disrupted and open for true global collaboration, while effectively
changing how people interact with each other. Social media has changed and
continues to shape the way we exchange of information, share content and add to
it as well as pass it on and discuss ideas. It is influencing the business of
how and what media and brands communicate thus redefining how companies respond
to the marketplace, including customers, stakeholders, and influencers. To put it
bluntly social media is a complete change in the way we communicate, it’s here
to stay so whether you have a natural fear of it remember your customer is
already there. Worse or better still the conversation takes place with or
without you! I think it’s safe to say that companies investing in better
connecting with their customers now will most definitely have an advantage over
those that wait and see what happens to this social media thing. So you need to
set up a robust social media team today to exploit this massive opportunity and
that needs a leader to set it up!
6.
You Need Some Plan
And Order!
A company
Facebook page and Twitter handle or a corporate blog isn’t a personal profile
where you post ‘when something comes to
your mind’. Do you have a social
media policy with laid out guidelines on what should be posted and how? Do you
have a maintenance schedule? This isn’t something that you post when you feel
like or when you have the time! Do you know who you want to reach out to? What
is their age? How will you engage them? Do you know their touch points? Do you
understand how and when they consume new media? What are their habits and
reasons? What information do they want? How will social media help you achieve
your business objectives? Do you have a strategy and a plan? Where do you
start? A social media manager and his team will help you answer these questions
and guide strategy execution and implementation. You shouldn’t take social
media casually anymore- please!
7.
The Rules Have
Changed!
The old-school
marketers were used to one-way marketing communication whereas that approach
doesn’t work on social media! The old school guys were used to the “me me me” marketing where they paid to
play, they bought attention (Experiential
efforts, PR, ad space on newspapers, TV and OOH) with a huge budget! With
social media you can’t buy attention anymore. Now you get back what you
authentically put in-content is king so they say! Social media isn’t much of a
technology that you need to learn but a conversation that you can join and be
part of and better still know how to trigger one! It’s not much about what you
type in on the 140 characters but the ‘when, why, how and to whom’. With a
social media manager and a team, then a business can put a department into task
to explain the spending on social media and the ROI. Let the marketing managers
and brand managers handle what they know best and get a social media manager to
do what he or she understands! Digital, mobile and social media agencies will
also find it easy to work with a manager who understands a bit of what they
do! Well am not saying all the current
managers don’t understand new media; we have a few tech-savvy ones who get it,
lead organizations in embracing digital media and want to fully exploit the
opportunities available on these platforms.
8.
The Growth of
Social Media in Kenya.
Social networking has become
integral to the lives of many (research
shows it’s harder to resist than sex), to zoom in on Kenya; users of social
media represent the most influential and economically able section of the
population (Your customers, clients,
prospects, suppliers etc). The proliferation of mobile phone, affordable
smart phones and notebooks in the country completely changes the when, where
and how brands connect and interact with their communities online. Today we no
longer search for news, content and information, instead our friends and
followers continually push them to us on social media. This growth of social
media in business and communication in Kenya presents an opportunity as well as
a serious risk to your business; however whether or not you are active doing
the right thing on social media the conversation goes on with or without
you! If there’s a storm erupting via blogs, your customers will
expect you to respond via those same blogs, not via a carefully-worded press
release 4 days later. If there’s a crisis on Twitter regarding your product or
service then you need to listen and respond via the same platform! Social media
presents you a great opportunity to create and share content in various
multimedia formats that can be consumed on multiple screens so why don’t you
want to fully exploit this opportunity? Why do you want to tiptoe into it? You
need to get it RIGHT now or just
leave! It’s
pointless to be using social media if you only have it because everybody else
does!
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