It's such a big step getting your social media managed for the first time. Finding someone recommended, within your budget and responsive is vital. So how do we start?
I stopped offering this service myself in December 2021 but the following areas discussed in this blog are important for you to understand and to clarify if you wish to go ahead with this service with a competent Social Media Manager.
There is a fair bit of top heavy work that you'll need to do BEFORE trying to engage someone. You'll need to create several documents to hand over to your Social Media Manager (or SMM). These are vital to keep your business on brand and these will need updating at different times, see key below.
NB: Please ensure you can devote some regular time and energy, certainly at the beginning, with the Social Media Manager so that they fully understand you, your products, ethos and brand. This is perfectly normal and entirely expected from the Social Media Manager.
The SMM will need to know who your ideal customers are in order to create content that attracts and retains them. You'll have to work on your avatars and build a comprehensive picture of who they are, what they want from you, why they should pick you, where you'll find them and when they want to purchase from you. If you want to learn how to create a Customer Avatar, please click here. This will need to be updated at least annually.
They will also need a very good understanding of who you are as a business. What's your core values, what makes you tick? What are your brand colours? What kind of character does your brand have? Are you serious, funny or a bit of both? What tone and style of language do you have? Finally, what is your brand story?
The Brand Avatar is how you want people to perceive your business online and even in person. To learn more about your Brand Avatar, please read this blog. This will need to be checked and updated every year or so, it shouldn't change tool much, unless you plan to rebrand.
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Now your SMM will need access to any social platforms you already have, or set up more. They should look up what has (and hasn't} been working for you. You'll have to tell them what Key Performance Indicators you want them to measure or take their guidance. It's very important you keep them accountable and have them provide regular reporting. An experienced manager will have tools that they can use to download and print out and send to you.
These are very personal to you. Some business owners worry more about reach, Likes and Followers, these would be seen more as Vanity Metrics . Most Social Media Managers worry more about engagement, click throughs or signups. It's up to you what you measure but once a decision has been made it must remain consistent so that any changes can be documented.
The Social Media Manager will need to know a LOT of information from here on.
How much time you commit to creating goals is up to you. What is recommend however is to work from your Mission and Vision Statement. This is the ultimate journey you wish to take your business and your clients on. As long as you have a goal to direct you, you're a Project Manager making it happen.
Goals could include:
Most Social Media Manager's operate on an initial 3 months build up. This is important if you either haven't been posting anything much before or were posting and doing ads very irregularly before handing over. Typically they will then offer a rolling monthly basis afterwards or 3 monthly fixed blocks. Almost all of them want to get paid at least a month in advance and they will ask if you want to have paid Ads on top (if they're any good), which you'll need to pay for directly on top of what you're paying them.
Most will work in tandem with your photographer, graphic designer and webmaster.
Most will suggest you use a co-ordination tool like Asana or Trello where you approve EVERYTHING before they go ahead with scheduling and posting.
Finally, most Social Media Managers will want to have at least 3 months of content planned and 6 weeks of content approved (before starting).
This is the MOST organised you will ever be. They will entirely expect to hound / nag you for the first few weeks and if they don't, you've got to wonder if they are making you a priority or not?
There is a full spectrum of support you can potentially avail of. Some people / companies explain them in greater detail than others but this list below outlines most of them, there could be more however:
As you can see it can be quite an in-depth relationship and they ultimately become an outsourced member of staff for you.
They will also charge (hopefully) suitably for the cover you require which can range from €300-€10,000 pm plus VAT in many cases. They will then expect you to pay out of your own pocket for any Ads budget on top.
This is where a lot of people can be caught out.
Make sure you know:
There should be a whole bunch of these terms and conditions and they likely differ from each company. Make sure to check ALL the small print. The longer a Social Media Manager has been in business, the more concise and understandable they will be.
This is why I completely stopped doing Social Media Management. I had business owners saying to me, "well if I need to do all of this to hand it over to someone else, I may as well do it myself?" No one else knows your products or services as intimately, your audience nearly as well, your brand persona or your dreams and aspirations.
Would YOU go to ALL this trouble just to set your Social Media Manager up on your socials? Or would / could you do all of this for yourself and not to pay for it?
When I started outsourcing some necessary elements of my business (that I didn't enjoy), it was totally worth it. I'll leave you with the final decision of either outsourcing or upskilling? You decide.
Working with clients Nationwide from base in Mullingar.
