These days, social media platforms are almost unavoidable. If you’re running a successful business, make that 100% unavoidable.
Potential customers get basic information about your business from Facebook, like your address, phone number and store hours. They might even shop your products right from Instagram. Social media is the quickest way to deliver the details you want to share straight to your customers.
Exactly what you share will be different for every business. It could be behind-the-scenes Stories, upcoming events, the latest styles or your newest innovations! No matter what your brand is posting on social media, there are eight skills our social media manager Jenna thinks are absolutely essential for social success.
1. Customer Service
It’s 2019 and we are definitely in the digital age, but the human element is what keeps your brand relatable. Don’t be afraid to have conversations with your customers online. Respond to their reviews (good and bad), questions and comments in a timely manner. It will go a long way toward earning your followers’ trust – and business.
2. Organization
Keep all of your profiles up-to-date with a content calendar. Use your time efficiently and schedule posts for the week ahead of time. You can even set aside a day to plan a month’s worth of content at a time. With a solid foundation of consistent posts, you can add timely and relevant content into the mix when the opportunity presents itself.
3. Proper Grammar
Finding typos in social media posts make us cringe. Your customers probably have a similar reaction. There are so many ways to be sure your post is perfect before posting. Double check your work with Grammarly or run it past a co-worker, or better yet, both!
4. Restraint
We can’t stress this enough. Restraint may be the number one skill to have while using social media these days, especially when representing a business. It’s difficult to scroll past some posts – but you must. Stay neutral on your business profiles, unless a certain stance is part of the foundation of your company. And still, we suggest operating under the “less is more” mantra.
5. Commitment
No one likes following an account that goes silent for months on end only to come back and clog your feed. Commit to a set amount of time each day to keeps your accounts relevant. Consistency is key!
Consistency means different things for different companies. Some post just once a week. Others share multiple times every day. While you should consider how many posts you publish, keeping that number steady is much more important than the total number.
6. Presentation
Stay consistent in your messaging and imagery. (We told you consistency was key!) Visit your social accounts as a user. Be sure that your brand’s personality is shining through without making things messy. Is there continuity across your posts, or could you use templates to keep things a little cleaner and more focused?
7. Visuals
Being able to represent your business visually is increasingly important, and it’s not just about images. Videos perform better than static images on social media. On Twitter, tweets with a video received 10 times the engagement of tweets without one. Almost 70% of people want to watch a video to learn about a new product, rather than read an article, look at an infographic or sift through a manual.
8. Adaptability
Social media management often comes down to crunching numbers. The analytics your social media platforms offer are incredible. Take the time to follow the insights available, including which of your posts received the most engagement and how people found your posts. Reacting to what’s working and what isn’t is a major part of building a successful social media account!
