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Whether you’re a busy social media manager juggling multiple social media accounts or an entrepreneur targeting a niche market, social media management can be a headache.
You know that social media is essential for growing your brand, but you’re not sure which social media software will work best for your business.
This article will explain what social media management is, why it’s essential for your business, make clear recommendations for improving your brand’s social performance, and share the top features to look for in a social media management tool.
What is social media management?
Almost 60% of the global population are active social media users, making a strong social media presence essential for any brand wanting to tap into that vast pool of potential customers.
Social media management is the process of planning, creating, analyzing, and optimizing social media content in all its forms. All in all, the goal is to build brand visibility and trust — and eventually make more sales.
Through social media content, brands attract new customers and build relationships with existing ones.
But social media management goes beyond mere content creation.
These days, it involves strategically managing every aspect of your social media channels — from top-of-funnel activities, such as marketing, to bottom-of-funnel services such as customer care. That’s why social media management tools come in handy for organizing everything in one place.
Why is social media important?
You’re probably already sold on investing in social media, so we’ll cut to the chase and move on to management quickly.
But let’s take a look at a few of the numbers:
- When it comes to brand discovery, social media is the place to be. 27% of internet users say they use social media to find new products to purchase.
- 47% of all internet users discover new brands through social media, while 45% use social networks when conducting brand research.
But these days, social media for business goes way beyond marketing and brand-building.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way people shop and led to a huge increase in online purchases.
The knock-on effect of this is that the number of people seeking customer care through social media has also increased.
And this trend is set to continue, as digital customer service interactions are expected to increase by 40% by the end of 2021.
What’s more, customer support is a key factor in people’s purchase decisions, with 60% of internet users hesitating to purchase from a new brand because they are afraid of bad customer service.
This means social media managers should consider strengthening their social media presence at the top and bottom of the funnel by supporting social media marketers and customer service teams.
But which social network should you invest in?
Which is the best social media platform for your business?
As you can see from the image below, the main social platforms are a huge source of untapped potential customers.
The best social media platform for your business depends on who your target audience is, since different demographics are more active on different platforms.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each social network in more detail.
Facebook — the oldest and biggest social media platform
What it’s good for:
Since Facebook is one of the oldest and largest social networks, most social media users have a Facebook profile.
Setting up a business account is easy, and groups allow you to create a community of clients and potential customers.
Drawbacks:
Because of the high levels of interaction with followers that Facebook requires, you’ll need a dedicated team to manage your Facebook account.
Twitter — the platform to engage with current events
What it’s good for:
Most brands have a Twitter account to keep followers engaged with snappy tweets and stay relevant by joining trending conversations.
Although it has fewer active users than other platforms, a well-thought-out tweet can easily go viral and help you gain visibility.
Drawbacks:
Since tweets are limited to 280 characters, you have limited space to get your message across to your followers.
LinkedIn — the platform for professionals
What it’s good for:
LinkedIn is a social media network that focuses on professional and business networking, which makes it the platform of choice for many B2B companies.
It’s more formal than other social networks, and people expect you to promote your business there.
Since industry influencers often have LinkedIn accounts, it’s a great place to land high-profile clients.
Drawbacks:
LinkedIn tends to have less interaction than other platforms and has less potential reach as there are fewer users.
Instagram — the platform for visual brands
What it’s good for:
Instagram is the social platform for you if your target audience is primarily young and urban. And with over 1 billion active users — most of whom are 34 or under — the potential reach is huge.
Short videos, lives, stories, and photos are all popular forms of content on Instagram.
Drawbacks:
With so much competition, success on Instagram requires some advanced social media skills, including photography and photo editing, which means you’ll need a dedicated team to execute your Instagram marketing strategy.
YouTube — the platform for video content
What it’s good for:
YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine after Google, and the advantage of creating content on this platform is that your videos will also show up in Google search results.
Companies can build a relationship with their customers and strengthen their brand through creating content such as product reviews or educational videos — think how-tos and tutorials.
Drawbacks:
To do well on YouTube, you need to make high-quality videos, which will require a budget and possibly hiring a video specialist.
Pinterest — the platform for eCommerce and consumer brands
What it’s good for:
This is the platform that social media users go-to for inspiration, whether it’s for a wedding or where to go on vacation.
As an aesthetically pleasing social network, Pinterest is a good option for e-commerce businesses — such as home decoration retailers — to connect with potential customers. Using a Pinterest scheduler would make it easier to plan and schedule all the aesthetic content for your business.
Drawbacks:
Pinterest has relatively few active users, making potential reach limited. Interaction is also fairly low on this platform.
TikTok — the platform for young people
What it’s good for:
This is where Gen Z hangs out, so if your target audience is primarily young people, TikTok is the place to be.
The short videos are popular with a younger demographic, who consume tutorials on everything from cooking to makeup to photography, as well as comedy and choreographed dances.
TikTok has now become one of the main go-to destinations for users seeking inspiration, ranging from restaurant recommendations, and fashion advice all the way to TikTok travel suggestions. The platform’s impact has been significant in influencing people’s decisions.
Drawbacks:
Large companies are already leveraging the power of TikTok with production-level content, so you’ll need to dedicate resources to creating TikTok videos if you want to compete with them. Also, If you make a request to TikTok, they can provide you with information about your account, including your entire watch history leading up to the date of the request. This information can be examined to gain a competitive advantage.
Social media management: 7 tips for maximizing your social performance
Now that you’re familiar with the main social media platforms, here are 7 ways to get the most out of your social accounts.
#1. Know your target audience
Effective social media management starts with knowing who you’re talking to, so analyze your target audience to find out:
- What they’re interested in
- How they use social media — including which platforms they use most
- Which influencers they follow
A great way to do this is to use forms to collect data and create ideal customer profiles, then use this information to create targeted social media marketing campaigns.
#2. Conduct a social media audit
Carrying out a social media audit will allow you to see which of your social channels and social media posts are performing well, as well as where you’re wasting resources.
Analyze metrics such as engagement, follower growth, posting frequency, and post quality to identify potential areas for improvement. Here you can learn more about conducting social media audits to discover whether your brand has a consistent presence across all networks.
#3. Choose the right social platform
Knowing who your audience is, where they hang out online, and what kind of content performs well with them will help you determine which social channel is best for you.To choose the right platform(s), you also want to think about what your goals are.
Some objectives might include:
- Brand awareness
- Lead generation
- Website traffic
- Conversions
#4. Create a content calendar for your social media content
A successful social media marketing campaign requires planning, which is why you need a content calendar.
A content calendar allows you to map out content across all your channels, including blog posts, social media posts, and website content.
The image below shows an example of a content calendar from monday.com:
Once you’ve planned your content, schedule posts using a social media scheduling automation.
#5. Use social listening to get feedback
Carrying out social media monitoring across all your brand’s accounts is key to understanding how your audience is engaging with your content, as well as the impact of your campaigns. To get more feedback you can also go live or host Q&As.
Social listening is the act of observing social media trends and identifying topics and queries that are relevant to your brand, as well as what people are saying about the brand itself.
You can also create Google alerts to keep an eye on online conversations around your topic or brand. With social listening, you can take your brand awareness and recognition to a brand new level.
#6. Use social media analytics for reporting
It goes without saying that analyzing your social media performance is crucial for improving it.
A tool such as Google Analytics can help you understand which social media platforms perform best for you. For more data, you can use dedicated social media analytics tools such as Instagram follower trackers.
#7. Give stellar customer support
People are tired of poor customer service.
In fact, 90% of customers in the US say good customer service is a determining factor in whether they decide to do business with a company.
With many people now turning to social media for customer support, organizations that strengthen their social media customer care will come out on top.
How to choose a social media management software for your business — 6 top features
Now you know how to maximize your performance on social media, you’re going to need software that makes your social media management system run seamlessly.
Here are the top 6 features to look for when choosing a social media management solution.
#1. Social media campaign management
Look for a tool that allows you to plan, schedule, and track your social media marketing campaigns.
With monday.com, you can centralize campaign tasks, as well as monitoring the progress and success of your campaigns through dashboards and board views.
#2. Sales and CRM
Selling online these days often means having multiple channels through which you sell your products or services.
Look for a platform that allows you to manage your entire sales pipeline across all your channels and nurture your customers through customer relationship management.
With monday.com, you can store all your contacts in one place and visualize your entire sales funnel.
Since sales and customer service teams both have access to this information, they can work together to provide a flawless customer experience.
#3. Automations
Automations are essential in any social media management tool — they’re what will make your social media campaigns run like clockwork.
With monday.com, you can create custom automation recipes that trigger specific actions, saving you and your team time on menial tasks.
#4. Integrations
Not only should your social media management software integrate with your social media platforms — you also need integrations with the other tools you use to collaborate with your team.
monday.com has integrations with all your favorite software platforms so you can centralize your work in one place.
#5. Reporting and analytics
Data is the key to analyzing the performance of your social media management efforts, and you need to be able to visualize it in a way that makes sense to you.
monday.com’s multiple dashboard views allow for easy reporting and data visualization that help you make data-driven decisions.
Cure your social media management headache with monday.com
Social media management can be overwhelming, but with the right strategy and software, it can skyrocket your business.
The best way to successfully run your social media campaigns is with a social media management platform that adapts to your needs.
monday.com is a Work OS that can not only help you manage your social media more effectively but also improve your company’s overall performance.
