Definitive Guide to Social Media Management

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Definitive Guide to Social Media Management

Social media management is a multi-faceted discipline that involves orchestrating various tasks for effective social media strategy execution. We’ve created this comprehensive overview to explain how it works.

min read

Dec 24, 2023

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What is Social Media Management?

Social media management encompasses the continuous process of crafting and scheduling content to develop and engage an audience across various social platforms. Far from being just a way to post content online, social media management now encompasses an array of responsibilities. This includes creating a comprehensive social media content strategy, managing the online reputation of a brand, overseeing community management and programming, and strategizing and executing paid social media campaigns. It also involves managing and developing team members involved in these activities.

Building Trust

The significance of social media management extends well beyond merely enhancing brand visibility and keeping up with trends. It plays a crucial role in forging more intimate connections with target audiences on a large scale. The relationships and trust built through social media can significantly boost brand loyalty, affinity, and trust, cementing a stronger, more enduring connection with the audience.

Content Creation

This involves creating unique ideas and effectively translating these concepts into engaging posts. Creativity and an understanding of current trends are essential to ensure that the content is appealing for your target audience and stands out in a crowded digital feed.

Account Administration

Efficient management of social media requires coordinating various elements, including content scheduling, cross-team collaboration, and maintaining a consistent brand voice across different platforms. This role often involves juggling multiple tasks and ensuring that all aspects of the social media strategy are aligned and executed smoothly.

Audience Engagement

Engaging with your audience goes beyond simply publishing content; it requires actively listening to and interacting with followers. This can involve responding to comments, participating in relevant conversations, and creating content that encourages user interaction and feedback. Building a community around your brand is an important component of maximizing your brand's opportunities on social media.

How to Manage Social Media

Managing social media effectively requires a strategic approach and a keen understanding of your audience. Start by defining clear goals that align with your overall business objectives, such as increasing account followers. Develop a content strategy tailored to your target audience, focusing on creating engaging, relevant, and valuable content that resonates with them. It's important to choose the right platforms based on where your audience spends their time and to maintain a consistent posting schedule to keep your audience engaged. Engage actively with your audience by responding to comments, messages, and feedback, which helps in building a loyal community. Using social media management tools to streamline the scheduling of posts, track performance analytics, and manage multiple accounts efficiently. Effective social media management is about creating a dynamic, interactive online presence that reflects your brand’s voice and values while fostering meaningful connections with your audience.

Social Media Content Creation

Social media content creation is a crucial element in engaging and growing an online audience and ultimately depends on the platform you are sharing to, as much as the content itself. Social media content should be visually appealing and interesting enough to trigger engagement from users based on your audience's interests and preferences. Creating a variety of content types, such as images, videos, infographics, and blog posts, tailored for each social media platform's unique characteristics and audience behavior has consistently shown success as a core strategy for brands. Creativity and originality are important for standing out in a crowded social media landscape, and it's also important to stay updated with current trends and integrate them into your content stream. Building content can start with a compelling story, evoking emotions, or provide value, whether it's educational, entertaining, or inspirational. Incorporating user-generated content and interactive elements like polls or quizzes can also enhance engagement and community feeling.

Social Media Management Tools

As the demands of maintaining an active social media presence have surged, manual management has become virtually untenable. In other words, you should be using a social media management tool for effective social media management. With the requirements for content sharing, consumer interaction, and paid advertising initiatives growing increasingly complex, digital calendars for social media tasks are more crowded than ever. To tackle this challenge, businesses are resorting to specialized social media management tools. These tools are not just efficient but often quite affordable, with many offering free trials.

Create More Content

Businesses often need to create and post a high volume of content across multiple platforms, which can be overwhelming to manage manually. This challenge is compounded by the need for each piece of content to be tailored for the specific audience and norms of each platform, requiring not only quantity but also a strategic, nuanced approach. Furthermore, keeping track of engagement metrics and audience feedback across various platforms adds another layer of complexity, necessitating a more systematic and integrated approach to manage effectively.

Scheduling Posts

Another challenge with social media is the timing of posts. Often, optimal posting times don't align with your availability, disrupting your daily routine. Social media management tools resolve this issue by enabling you to schedule posts far in advance—be it hours, days, or even months.

Consistency

Maintaining a consistent social media image is vital for brand building, requiring meticulous planning and organization. The flexibility of a social media management tool allows for more strategic planning and a cohesive brand narrative. Furthermore, a well-organized content calendar enables businesses to strategically align their posts with important dates, events, and product launches, ensuring that the content is relevant and timely.

Real-Time Listening

Today, more than half of consumers prefer customer service through social media rather than traditional channels like phone or email. Social media management tools offer real-time monitoring and alerts, allowing for swift and effective responses. Gone are the days when you would need a 24/7 representative to keep track of customer interactions manually.

Engagement Requirements

Timely interaction with consumers – responding to comments, messages, and reviews – is crucial for maintaining a positive brand image. This consistent engagement not only builds trust and loyalty among customers but also signals to potential customers that the company values its consumer base and is attentive to their needs. Prompt and thoughtful responses to negative feedback can mitigate potential damage to your reputation.

Collaboration

Social media management tools are cloud-based solutions which generally have better and more collaboration features for multiple users to work on content and accounts. This approach supports teamwork on individual posts or larger campaigns, allowing individuals and their teams more capability to maximize their social media efforts.

Analytics and Reporting

Understanding social media performance through analytics is essential for strategy development but can be time-consuming and complex. It involves sifting through vast amounts of data to discern patterns, measure the impact of various strategies, and identify areas for improvement. While built-in analytics of social media platforms offer some insights, some tools can provide a better overview of social data. This also depends on the platform, and in some cases, the native social platform analytics provide sufficient or better analytics than social media management tools.

Create More Content

Scheduling Posts

Consistency

Real-Time Listening

Engagement Requirements

Collaboration

Analytics and Reporting

Most Popular Social Media Tools

When selecting a social media management tool, you should consider your specific requirements so that you can evaluate based on functionality which may not be shared across every tool you test or review. While most tools have similar features and platform support, there are exceptions, so check what social channels are supported and keep track of your must-have features. One effective way to compare tools and identify their differences is looking at reviews for social media tools by other people. G2 is a great place to read a variety of reviews from current and previous users.

For most people, price and ease of use will be the largest factors. Look for features like scheduling posts, analytics, engagement tracking, and the ability to manage multiple accounts. How this works will vary across platforms, and may not match with your own expectations of user-friendliness and an acceptable learning curve. Integration with other marketing tools and CRM systems can streamline workflows but will not be available on all social media management systems. Assess the tool's analytics capabilities, as robust reporting can provide valuable insights into social media performance and audience behavior, but may not necessarily be needed.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite s a well-known tool with a comprehensive set of features which allows users to manage multiple social networks, schedule posts, and track social media performance, and it is widely used by brands and businesses of all sizes to streamline their online presence and engage effectively with their audience.

Buffer

Known for its simplicity and user-friendly interface, Buffer helps users schedule posts, analyze performance, and manage all their social accounts in one place, making it particularly favored by small businesses and individual professionals who seek an efficient yet straightforward solution for their social media management needs.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a favorite for its in-depth analytics and engagement tools, offering detailed insights into audience demographics and behavior, which makes it an excellent tool for larger brands and enterprise-level accounts that require a comprehensive understanding of their social media impact to refine and optimize their marketing strategies.

Later

Later specializes in visual content scheduling, particularly for Instagram, and also supports other platforms like Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter, offering a visual content calendar and analytics, making it an ideal choice for brands and influencers who prioritize visually-driven social media strategies and seek to maintain a cohesive aesthetic across multiple channels.

Agorapulse

Agorapulse combines scheduling, social listening, and reporting in a user-friendly interface and is known for its shared inbox that consolidates messages from various platforms, which makes it especially valuable for businesses and social media managers looking to efficiently manage and respond to users across multiple channels in one centralized location.

Sendible

Sendible is designed for marketing agencies managing multiple client accounts and offers customizable features like collaborative calendars and client reporting, making it a top choice for marketing professionals who require a robust, adaptable platform to efficiently coordinate and report on diverse social media campaigns for various clients.

Tailwind

Tailwind is tailored for Pinterest and Instagram, providing scheduling and analytics specifically optimized for these platforms, making it a great tool for businesses and influencers focusing on visual storytelling and seeking to maximize their impact and engagement on these visually-oriented social networks.

CoSchedule

CoSchedule is a social media management tool and also works as a complete marketing calendar, allowing users to organize all their marketing efforts, including social media, in one place, making it ideal for content marketers and bloggers who need a centralized platform to plan, execute, and track the performance of a diverse range of marketing activities and campaigns.

SocialPilot

SocialPilot is a cost-effective tool for scheduling posts, curating content, and analyzing social media performance, supporting a wide range of platforms and being particularly suitable for small to medium-sized businesses looking for an affordable yet comprehensive solution to enhance their social media presence and efficiency.

Zoho Social

Part of the Zoho suite, Zoho Social offers features like scheduling, monitoring, and analytics, and it integrates well with other Zoho products, making it a good choice for businesses already using Zoho applications and seeking a seamless integration of their social media management with other business processes and tools.

Hootsuite

Sprout Social

Not Using Social Media Tools

Choosing not to use social media management tools is a viable option, especially for smaller businesses or individual entrepreneurs with a limited online presence. In this scenario, direct engagement on each platform becomes crucial. It's important to consider the time and effort required to manually schedule posts, monitor engagement, and interact with the audience across different platforms. Without the analytical tools provided by management software, one must rely on each platform's native analytics, which may be less comprehensive. The risk of inconsistent posting schedules and potential difficulty in maintaining a unified brand voice across platforms are key considerations. However, this approach can foster a more authentic, personal interaction with the audience, which can be beneficial for building strong, loyal communities. Ultimately, the decision not to use social media management tools should be based on the specific needs and capacities of the business or individual, weighing the benefits of hands-on engagement.

Paid Social Media

While managing paid social media campaigns is an option that demands expertise in targeting, budget allocation, and performance analysis, it is not a necessity for all businesses using social media management tools. You may find that the native platforms as equally capable for managing paid campaigns, and in some cases, social media management tools aren't as effective in managing campaigns when compared to the advertising tools build into each platform. However, social media management tools have unique capabilities for multi-platform campaign management that may outweigh the loss of other functionality if efficient campaign management is a priority. Additionally, social media management tools can offer unique performance analysis for evaluating efficiency, and can be helpful for benchmarking performance.