What is Social Media Management?

Social media is growing extensively with 11 new users added every second. More than 3.2 billion people across the globe are present on one or the other social media platforms. Hence, over 38% of the organizations today, are planning to spend more than 20-30% of their advertising budget on social media management services.

Social media marketing is evolving as an effective digital marketing strategy helping businesses grow more leads and enhance their sales. Similar to the variety of marketing strategies, targeting a huge audience, and building trust among them is the major motive of social media marketing. A perfectly tailored and cohesive social media strategy can strengthen the social media presence of any brand.

Here comes the role of social media management. It automates the social media marketing of any business improving its productivity alongside. Read this article to know more about social media management – its benefits, automation, application, cost of social media management plans, and much more!

Table of Contents

• What is Social Media Management?
• Benefits of social media management for business
• How to streamline social media management?
• Different components of social media management
• How much does social media management cost?
• Why social media management services?

What is Social Media Management?

Social media management is a part of digital marketing that looks after the creation, publication, engagement, and management of the content on various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, YouTube, Pinterest, and more.

It is much more than posting company updates on social media platforms. Engaging with the audience, reaching out to fetch new business opportunities, spreading the brand voice, personalizing people’s experience on your social media profile, etc., is equally important.

Any brand can take its business to social media using precise management strategies. Here is the list of social media management actions in the initial phase:

• Conducting an audit of existing social media accounts
• Analysis of the target audience and competitors
• Finalizing the future social media accounts after deciding the suitable social media platforms

Following this, there are various services under this domain that can enhance the social media presence of any brand with tried and tested as well as innovative strategies.

Benefits of social media management for business

Over 90% of the millennials, 77.5% of Generation X, and 48.2% of the baby boomers are active social media users. Hence, every business has limitless possibilities for growth through social media marketing. Potential customers actively search for brands to meet their requirements on social media.

In this scenario, a social media management agency / services can assist a business to perform complex social media marketing or optimization tasks with an organized framework to address a wider audience. Here are the benefits that it renders to the brands:

Saves Time

It helps in the implementation of well-organized and pre-scheduled social media marketing or optimization strategies.

Cost-effective

It cuts off the cost of the company that goes into traditional marketing (TV ads, magazine and newspaper ads, hoardings, etc.).

Improves brand visibility

By posting relevant content on different social media throughout the day.

Increases return on investment (ROI)

It enhances lead generation and leads conversion processes through authentic and valuable content.

Enhanced brand reputation

By allowing a brand to review the comments and feedback, and responding to them in the least possible time.

How to streamline social media management?

Social media management involves consistent tasks like updating the profile, posting engaging content, and curating new content from time to time. Here is how any business can automate these time consuming and tedious tasks with the least efforts.

Using social media management tools

Online tools like Hootsuite and Zoho provide 360-degree assistance in streamlining any social media marketing workflow. They have options for scheduling posts, analyzing the trends, and engaging with the audience that might otherwise seem to be overwhelming to a social media marketing expert. Further, one can work towards pushing the content to reach the right audience.

Availing social media management services

Social media management services are essential to improve the quality of content and engagement with the audience. They are well equipped with human and technological resources as well as intelligence to grow the social media presence for brands. With tactics such as targeted posting and sponsored ads, social media management services can uplift online businesses to the next level.

Brands can outsource these services to a social media management company and boost their business growth.

Different components of social media management

Social media management covers a huge array of components focusing to achieve the marketing goals for the brand. They not only help the company to set up its social media profiles but also customize the social media marketing strategies for greater ROI. Here is information on these components.

Target audience and competitor research

A social media target audience is the group of people (based on age, demographics, profession, behavior, education, etc.) that a brand wishes to engage with for its products or services. Identification of the target audience helps the business to customize its content for enhancing lead generation and conversion outcomes.

Competitor research involves the identification of the competitors’ social media profiles, strategies, content, and engagement. It helps the brands to find the strengths and weaknesses of their rivals. This can further provide valuable insights into the evolution of social media strategies for business growth.

Conducting these researches from time to time can contribute to the success of any social media strategy.

Creation of social media strategy

Setting SMART social media marketing goals

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Such goals lead a business to realistic social media strategies and outcomes.

Tracking insightful metrics

Apart from the likes and followers, businesses can go for cost-per-click (CPC), story views, click-throughs, comments, mentions, etc., depending on the social media platform for better insights.

Drawing inspiration from social media success stories

Award-winning campaigns, published case studies, well-known brands, etc., can be referred to for building a strong strategy.

Creating a content calendar

This step involves setting up a posting & engagement schedule and determining a content mixture for the social media marketing campaigns.

Social media profile setup

A social media profile is the representation of a brand on any platform. A successful social media profile consists of few additional elements.

Display name

The target audience can identify any brand on social media with this name.

Username

Using a unique username across all the social media channels can enhance the brand identity.

Profile picture

A profile picture aligning with the business goals can help the brands build trust among the audience.

Website link

Placing links to business web pages on social media profiles can increase the traffic on the website.

Bio

An ideal bio consists of one or two sentences. It is a glimpse of the brand for initial users/profile visitors.

Cover picture

A customized cover picture can spread the brand’s voice effectively.

Platform-specific content creation

Every social media channel requires a unique style of communication. Hence, any brand aiming to post or run a marketing campaign on social media needs to design tailor-made strategies, contents, captions, and graphics. These should align with the audience demographics, expectations, and interests associated with a particular channel. Hence, the companies require a thorough analysis of the audience as well as content formats on every social media platform before designing/posting the content/marketing campaign.

For example, medium-length content with trending hashtags in a friendly/informal tone goes well with Instagram. But LinkedIn demands lengthy, and formal captions with few yet relevant hashtags.

Social media marketing campaign execution

After creating the content, the immediate step is the execution of the social media campaign. This involves scheduling and posting the content. At the same time, it is also important to listen to the audience. Social listening helps the marketing experts to identify the trending hashtags, peak hours of audience activity and gain insights into the brand sentiments. Using the correct hashtags and posting the content at right time can boost the content reach.

The immediate step is to engage with the audience. Scheduling the social engagement for each post can help the brand streamline its communications with the audience.

Reports and monitoring

Monitoring social media growth with preferred metrics can help a brand monitor its growth on different channels. However, curating systematic reports and monitoring the activity can help the company design future social media strategies to stand out in the competitive market. This can give an in-depth insight into the social media performance of the brand through the analysis of the basic growth metrics like likes, mentions, clicks, comments, etc., and comparing them with those of competitors. Businesses can repeat this process weekly, monthly, or quarterly as per their requirements.

How much does social media management cost?

The whole world is working and spending time online now. Social media marketing is one of the best ways to bring in 10x the revenue if correct strategies are applied. Business owners cannot do this on their own all the time. Designing posts, creating copies, consistently posting them, and engaging with their audience is a tedious task. It would be a good choice to hire people already skilled in social media management and marketing for the same. But how much does it cost?

Well, there is no single answer to this question. Social media management costs differently based on different factors. Whether one chooses to work with an agency or freelancers, hire an in-house team, or hire a number of people for different tasks, factor in when the costs are being calculated. Furthermore, the quantity of components and the quality of work also matters equally.

Number of networks targeted, number and types of required posts, engagement with the community over comments and DMs, number and types of promotions and ad copies, etc., all these come into the picture while calculating the total cost. However, a plan as basic as 30 posts with simple images, community engagement and management, along with several complementary services specific to the platform should cost around $500 on an average given that an overall solution is provided. The costs might be drastically different depending on the service provider, but overall social media management generally costs between $500 to $2500 on a monthly basis.

Some service providers also charge on an hourly basis and the basic hourly charges for social media management range from $15 per hour to $50 per hour. Some very experienced and expert social media professionals also charge more than $100 per hour. Additionally, if one decides to go for done-for-you templates or cuts down on the services required, the charges might drop down to as much as 50% of the original price.

Why social media management services?

Social media is a place where the world hangs out. One can only benefit from a strong social media presence. This requires updating valuable content, engaging with the audience, and listening to them on a regular basis. However, it is not easy to manage a business and promote it on social media at the same time single-handedly. It is always easier to take help from those who know what they are doing. Be it a small, medium, or large-scale business, social media management services become a mandate to handle their social media presence and activity accurately.

Here are the benefits of investing in professional social media management services.

Time-saving

Social media managers are experts at everything ranging from creating a strategy, creating content, tracking analytics, and optimizing the social media profile at the same time. It’s always better and gives faster results when an expert is involved.

Better traffic

Social media managers know what people are looking for. Giving the audience the content, they love will only bring more traffic and more revenue for the business.

Creating a community

It’s difficult for business owners to engage with the community while also working on other aspects. Hiring social media managers will allow the business to engage with the customers and lead to potential purchases.

Building an identity

The online presence of a brand determines the authenticity and genuineness of its products in a manner. Having a good social media presence is a strong factor in success.

Increasing ROI

Social media management experts know the right way to conduct successful social media marketing campaigns. This can enhance the lead generation as well as conversion rates for the brand.

Competitive social media management

Experts can think out-of-the-box and generate content and strategies based on their pre-defined formulas and experience. This can help the brand stand out in the tough competition that exists on social media platforms.

Conclusion

Social media management is not only about posting updates on various platforms but also refers to engagement, analysis, and monitoring of the audience and their response. It also involves researching for the target audience as well as competitors. Further, every social media platform varies in terms of its audience, communication, and algorithms. The experts are well versed with the algorithms and they also come up with innovative solutions based on their skills and experience. This can benefit the brand to boost its revenue. In this highly competitive world, where most businesses are building their social media presence, experts can help the brands to build their unique presence on various platforms. Hence, hiring a specialized team for social media management can drive more traffic to any business and enhance lead conversion rates.