When you put it as simply as possible, Social Media management is all about keeping your social media channels running with content that people find engaging. But if you want your social media to reap dividends, you need to go a bit further than that: you need to engage with followers directly, produce content that drives sales and (hopefully) goes viral, gather analytics to see what works best with your audience, and keep it up over a period of weeks, months or even years.

How do you manage all of this easily? Social Media Management is almost like a science: using analytics in combination with management suites like Hootsuite and Zoho Social, you can refine a scattershot social media strategy into something that has a chance to break the ‘viral barrier’.

Create a ‘post surplus’ for rainy days

Sometimes you’ll find that there’s very little interesting to post about on some days. It happens a lot when you’re working in niche industries that rarely generates mainstream attention. This is why it’s important to keep some basic post ideas scheduled, so that the flow of content doesn’t screech to a halt.

This can include linking to old blog posts on your site, news stories, promoting services and many others. Once you have some posts sketched out, you can focus on producing more interesting posts.

Always Engage

Social Media is now part of the average person’s life, and when they contact you via social media, it can be for a number of reasons: to voice a complaint, to inquire into your products or services or just to say they liked it. Whatever the case, it’s important that you engage with them.

Liking their posts or following up with questions and complaints indicate that your social media channels are both active and willing to engage with their viewers, rather than just churning out boilerplate content.

Create a Unique Brand

A lot of companies new to social media don’t plan their content around the company’s identity and brand: posting without a focus on company values or generating a tone of voice that separates you from from your competitors. Without that unique brand, you’re going to struggle when it comes to getting seen.

If you haven’t figured out a definable brand and tone of voice for your company, it’s time to brainstorm with your marketing team. Makes sure it’s understandable to your target demographic, mix it into your other PR activities to ensure consistency, and give your social media managers room to add their own flair to their posts, to make it look more organic and authentic.

Social Media Management is a relatively new field in comparison to traditional marketing and PR, but when done properly it can do better than any billboard or TV advertisement will ever achieve. Chetaru provides a number of marketing services focused around Social Media, including managing your accounts to guide your company towards success.

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