This post could easily be called, “5 Things to Ask for as a Social Media Manager,” but either way, I can say from firsthand experience that the communication between business owners/managers/marketing directors and their social media managers is dismal. Delegating your social media—whether to an employee or independent contractor—doesn’t mean you wash your hands of all things social. Instead, you need to take an active role in making sure that the voice of the company is what you want it to be, and that you’re actively helping to shape it. Here are 5 of the 51 tips I share in my new book, 51 Ways to Help Your Social Media Manager Crush It!
1. Share your personality with us
Who are you? What do you like? Dislike? Give your social media manager (SMM) a rundown of who you are and what you’re values are, so we can help translate them into the digital world. There are thousands of businesses out there like yours; give us the ammo to help us make you stand out and help people connect with your business on a personal level. Take the free Brandality Quiz to embrace your social media personality.
2. Share behind-the-scenes stuff.
Working on a new partnership? Thinking about offering a new product? You don’t have to give away the farm, but you can put teasers out that will entice your customers and make them pay attention for an announcement down the road. You want your fans to be invested emotionally into your company. What better way than to let them in on the new stuff you’re working on? Learn more from Lincelot Marketing’s post, “The Power of Behind the Scenes Marketing.”
3. Be active personally on social media
Statistics show that business leaders (from CEOs to local brick-and-mortar owners) need to embrace social. No, you don’t have to share every thought or take pictures of every meal you eat, but building a strong personal brand will help your company’s brand too. People love having direct access to a person, not just a company name. Take it one step further and hold a tweet chat once a month, where you answer questions from fans, employees, etc. This kind of transparency will lead to rabid fans because they will feel connected to you, not just what you make or do. Marketing Land provides some insight in “Study: 76% of Executives Believe CEOs Should be Utilizing Social Media Channels.”
4. Snap interesting photos.
We social media managers mostly work from home. Sure, it would be rad if they could just set up a desk inside your retail space (and if you’re an online business, it would be really pointless), but that might be distracting to your customers, right? And unless you hire a full-time social media manager (with a full-time salary, benefits, and the like), then your social media manager probably has several clients to manage. Snap anything that catches your eye and send as a text message to your social media manager. They’ll work their magic from there, using it for one of your social media outlets and editing it for future posts.
Since you work in your business probably almost every day, you can take at least one photo every single day of something that’s going on, such as:
- A shipment arrives
- Manager’s meeting
- Happy customer
- People in your store
- A visually appealing detail from your store
- Your staff hard at work
- A photo of your city (doesn’t matter if you’re a local business or not; people like to see hometown pride)
For more tips, read “How to Embrace the “Visual Year” of Social Media.”
5. Give us a company email address
Perhaps it’s just social@yourcompany.com, but we need an email address to sign up for certain online listings, profiles, etc. Plus, we might connect with a blogger via Twitter who then wants to come write about your business and we need to coordinate with them via email. An email address also comes in handy for sending press releases, sending out your newsletter, or other tasks that your SMM might be handling for you (and getting paid for, of course). Alternatively, we can create a Gmail account which is slightly less professional but better than nothing.
Which Brandality archetype did you get? Share in the comments below!