How to outsource your social media and still be personal
The ultimate how-to guide from Sam Says
There’s no denying that social media is a HUGE part of our lives. Whether it’s for business, or for hours of mindless scrolling to see what your friends are doing, it’s our latest addiction.
And as a social media manager, you’ll never hear me saying it’s a bad addiction.
The problem most of my clients are finding is that they do not have the time, or the know-how, to keep up-to-date and social on all the platforms we have available.
They question, ‘What works the best’, ‘What platforms should I be using’, ‘What sort of content should I share’, ‘Do people care less about what I post’, ‘What’s the best time to post’, ‘Who’s doing this well’, ‘How much time am I wasting’, ‘Am I being consistent enough’?
But when it comes to outsourcing their social media, they hesitate. Why? Because social media is meant to be personal and no one knows your business better than you right?
Now although this is a little bit true (you can’t dispute that), you’ve also got to ask yourself, do you have the time to create the content, manage every single notification, and be ready to post all year round?
If you’re even remotely curious about outsourcing your social media, here are my top tips to get started.
Before you outsource your social media, answer these 7 questions
1. What are your branded and non-branded keywords?
It’s important to know that there are two types of keywords – non-branded keywords or branded keywords. You should have a list of both. However, you’ll only really use non-branded keywords to help with your SEO efforts. Here’s the difference:
Branded keywords include your brand name and variations of it. For example, Sam Says, or Sam Says Social Media Manager. You can pretty much guarantee that your website will rank number 1 for all variations of your branded keywords (unless another business has a very, very similar name). People who use your brand keywords already know who you are and are typing in your business name to find your website. You don’t need any SEO efforts for these keywords.
Non-branded keywords are words you want to be known and rank for. For example, Social Media Manager or Content Creator. These are the words you’ll have to tell you social media manager as they will use them in your posts. By being consistent and using your keywords from your website, your blogs and on all your social media platforms, you’ll get more love from Google.
2. What is your brand personality?
No one knows the ‘person’ of your business better than you. You must be able to articulate the following:
Who you are
What you value
How you want to be perceived
Your voice (what language is acceptable)
What look, feel and style of posts you like (especially for Instagram)
Your message (what do you want people to remember about you?)
3. Who is your target audience?
If you’re randomly talking to everyone, you’ll struggle to convert sales. Who is your target market (those ideal people you want to work with, who need your product etc.)? What platforms are they using (find this out and focus your efforts there)? Clients who know who they’re talking to get the best results from their social media efforts.
4. Who do you admire?
Let’s be honest. We all have our little business crushes – those people who we see all over social media who are killing it. Their branding is on point, and their posts are so good, you want to emulate them. You also may see other brands that turn you off – they’re scattered, plain and boring. Make a list of the good and bad brands as you see them and give this list to your social media manager.
5. What has worked for you?
Think about your current social media efforts. What type of posts do people respond to? For example, if interactive questions are working well for you, keep asking them. But if no one responds, ditch that idea until your audience is ready to interact with you.
6. What do you want to achieve from social media?
When I ask clients this, they’re often not sure. They’re simply ‘doing’ social media because everyone else is and they feel they have to. So, here are some things you may want to get out of your social media efforts:
Grow a following of fans who love you and keep coming back from more – once you’re known, you’ll find yourself getting tagged when people ask for recommendations
Increase engagement, meet more people, find complimentary services, and to stay in touch with your audience
Everyone wants to sell more products/services but be careful how you do this. People hate constant hard sells on social media as it’s meant to be ‘social media’, not ‘sales media’. Only ‘sell’ when asked (i.e. recommendation posts) or using Ads
If you’re only doing social media to purely have a presence, that’s fine, but please don’t expect huge amounts of online love or to convert many people to a customer
7. How are you different?
With so many people on social media, it’s easy to blend into the background. So, find YOU. What makes you different from everyone else? And don’t tell me it’s ‘nothing’. We all have at least one thing that makes us unique.
What YOU should ask your social media manager
How long have you been doing this and have you got referrals from current clients?
What industries do you work with?
What’s your personal favourite social media platform?
What do you think of our current efforts and what do you think we should be doing?
How often will we review our SM efforts and end goals and how do we determine this?
What scheduling tools do you use?
How does this all work?
Want to have a chat about outsourcing your social media?
If you’re curious about how outsourcing your social media will look for your business, please get in touch.