By: Javy
Sometimes advertising through social media can be daunting due to the sheer number of platforms available: Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon; all of which have their own rules, strengths and weaknesses. For example, Tumblr puts a great deal of emphasis on visuals: the background, picture uploads, and even the font of the text are all noticeable long before the content of a text-filled Tumblr post. WordPress, on the other hand, has features that primarily emphasize text.
Keeping all these differences in mind, along with the varying passwords and usernames, can give anyone a nasty headache especially if you’re trying to run a small business at the same time. This is one of the reasons why having a social media manager (SMM) on staff can be worthwhile. They can save you a good bit of grief by taking the weight of managing your social networking sites off your shoulders.
No longer do you have to remember to update every single one of your social networking sites each time you have a sale or big news for potential customers. All you have to do is inform the SMM and let them take care of the rest.
But, really, aren’t you just paying someone to update your business’s Facebook and Twitter accounts? Perhaps. It’s all a matter of perspective and experimentation. If the financial standing of your business doesn’t improve after having the SMM for a fixed amount of time, then you know that either (a) social networking is not drawing that many customers to you or (b) the SMM is not performing satisfactorily.
And depending on who you hire, there may be more options available to you than just status updates. Some managers may be visually gifted and may design you a beautiful website—for a higher price. Some of them maybe highly aware of developing trends in the social networking sphere and may suggest new and effective avenues of advertising online. Some might do an excellent job at developing brand awareness. And some, might be able to drive more traffic to your website.
But ultimately a social media manager is there to save you time, relieve you from the frustrations of marketing online, and contribute to your ROI. Whether or not that’s worth the money is up to you; however, if business is flagging and your website or Facebook profile isn’t getting that many hits, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to invest (at least temporarily) in an SMM.
If you’re looking for someone to just do the basics—update Facebook/Twitter, send emails to your clients—then it might be best just to find someone who’s tech-savy. However, if you want to go the whole nine yards, you should probably contact a service that specializes in social media advertising.
Related articles
- What is social media marketing? (marketing.yell.com)
- Be social: Social media for small businesses (marketing.yell.com)
