5 Tip Tuesday: 5 Critical Social (Media) Skills Your Team Needs To Stay Afloat
There are a lot of businesses wasting time and money on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Some pay for different teams to take care of different platforms and secretly hope the teams will compete against each other for results. This is a mistake because the same brand messaging, campaigns and feeling should carry throughout all of a brand's social media presence. Other companies throw large budgets behind advertising and boosting campaigns for their target customer without reassessing how their target customer behaves online. It takes a small team to combine the skills necessary to make money on social channels. Neglect one of these skills and resign your business to raising awareness but don't expect to convert that awareness into sales.
1. Graphic Design
You need someone to imagine your product or service in new and interesting ways visually. Social media operates in the language of visuals: photos, videos, gifs and memes. Demonstrate that what you're selling is fun to look at and something your customer would like to look for and interact with in real life. They say that people eat with their eyes, well customers buy with their eyes too. Make sure you have a competent graphic designer on your social media team to sell your product in the language that social media understands.
2. Copywriter
Writing compelling captions isn't easy. How does your customer speak? What do they find funny? Do you have a special service to promote? How long a lead time do you need your posts written in advance? What is the optimal word length for each social media platform your company uses? A good copywriter can evoke your brand feeling, draw your audience's attention, tell them about your promotions and motivate them to buy your product or service all with a very restricted number of words. Wordsmiths are definitely wanted.
3. Data Analyst
Numbers don't lie and all of the numbers are available if you know where to look. But once you pull all of the numbers do you know what they mean? An analyst will be well versed in what each of the social stats means to your brand, how you can adjust your post content or schedule to optimize your accounts and what it all means for your audience network. And if they don't have this information you can task them with the research.
4. Project Manager
Unless your posts are all truly instant, all of the writing, design, posting and data analysis needs scheduling. Who is the person coordinating the delivery dates, information storage, posting schedule and payment details? Who communicates with each of the team members, makes sure they are getting what they need to do their jobs and ensures that everyone is happy! A project coordinator will keep the machine running smoothly so your company can concentrate on all of the other venues for selling your service.
5. Social Media Intern / Community Manager
Someone needs to actually upload the posts, respond to comments and follow your followers. It is always more time-consuming than you think and yet it is the most important part of your social media presence - being social! Supporting, communicating with and listening to your community on social media is what all of the platforms are all about. Take a look at Gary Vaynerchuck's blog 'If you don't invest in community management, you're done for. Here's why:' for confirmation.
The smaller your company is the fewer resources you have to dedicate to these five jobs but that doesn't mean you can cut these tasks and expect to make any money. If you are a solopreneur who can't afford these five hires than you need to ensure that you perform these tasks yourself. Attend our Professional Social Sales workshop October 21, 2017 for worksheets, one-on-one support and more on how to execute these five skills for your business. Hopefully we'll see you there!