How Can a Social Media Manager Support Your Business

In today’s digital age, your website is your digital storefront. But without a social media presence you lower your chances to convert visitors to leads and to clients.

Most people will look up businesses on social media, looking for reviews and recommendations. To see how they engage with their audience. To get a feeling and an idea about the people behind those businesses they would entrust with their problems. 

Also, social media platforms are the perfect —and free—places to drive back more traffic to your website. And who wouldn’t want that?

Recently I had a virtual coffee chat with Danielle Kelehan from Hello Socially. Danielle is a social media specialist, with passion for helping businesses grow communities that know, like, and trust. 

In this interview, we’ll talk about the following topics among others:

  • What can a social media specialist/manager do for your business
  • Common mistakes to avoid as business owners on social media
  • What type of content to post
  • How to overcome creative blocks when planning social media posts

Without further ado, let’s jump right into it. 

Danielle, first of all, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Clarity around what a social media manager does is key to offering the best service to clients.

As a social media marketer, I wear many hats and can offer several services outside the scope of social media. At this time I provide

  • management,
  • strategy, and
  • consultation/coaching. 

When I’m wearing my social media manager hat I’m focusing on engaging with my client’s audience, making sure brand voice is consistent over all channels and helping my client create content that will add value to their followers.

Some of the things that are generally not in the scope of a social media manager service would be things like SEO, website management, email marketing, and Google Ads.

That being said, I do sometimes provide these services to my clients depending on their capabilities and needs. There can be a lot of cross over. Generally, a social media manager should be focusing on social media platforms only. 

What’s your most favorite part of being a social media manager?

This is a great one! To be honest, I love what I do so much that there are several things that I enjoy regularly about being a social media marketer.

But if I had to decide, I think educating my clients is my favorite.

I love working with my clients on showing them how social media works or how they can make it work for their business.

What social media platforms do you cover?
Which one is your personal favorite platform?

The list of platforms I cover is

  • Facebook,
  • Instagram,
  • Pinterest,
  • Snapchat,
  • Twitter,
  • LinkedIn,

And primarily I focus on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn with my current clients.

Instagram is by far my favorite platform. I love the visuals and the community feel it provides to users. I also enjoy the tools within the app. They are engaging and fun to use to connect to others.

What are the most exciting projects that you’re working on at the moment?
Could you share some new strategy, trick you’re using in that campaign? 

Currently, I’m looking into creating a Small Business Tool Kit series that is a great place for small businesses to learn social media 101.

In our current environment, I think that the best strategy people can utilize right now is to really hone into what they offer. Stop trying to be all things to all people and be one amazing solution for people who need it.

When you run a small business, that requires a different approach like when you post to social media on your personal profile.
What are the most common mistakes to avoid when small businesses start with social media management for the first time?

Something I see often is companies posting content THEY like rather than posting content their audience likes.

To a certain extent, you need to be posting key things about your business to allow people to learn about you. But when you’re the only one who cares about your content then you’re doing it wrong.

And you see that in the performance numbers. Give your audience what they want to see while also telling them about who you are.

We often see social media feeds with perfectly aligned looks, cohesive colors and fonts.
But you can find those with an eclectic, eccentric, bold mix performing nicely as well.
When planning visuals for social media posts, how important it is to have a cohesive look in your view?

For platforms like Instagram, cohesive content is the most appealing for the vast majority, but not necessarily the most important thing.

First, I would say take a look at your branding and what the esthetic of your business is like. Create content that best represents your brand and just start posting.

Strive for progress, not perfection.

Second, see what performs the highest of all the content you post. If you notice a pattern of the type of content that resonates with your audience then take some time to organize in a pattern to see if they do even better.

In the long run, cohesive content is best and speaks of a solid brand. But if a bold mix resonates best with your audience then take the time to find out. 

A lot of entrepreneurs run their businesses alone, wearing all the hats all the time. And there are days when you just absolutely don’t know what to do on social media.
As someone who does social media management professionally for other businesses, where do you find inspiration for new projects? And how do you overcome creative blocks?

There are two ways I find inspiration for both my business and my clients.

I keep lists of new topics as they come to me. I don’t jump on them at that time, but I write them down for later when I have a block on what to post.

Coming back to that list is an inspiration in itself because the topics apply to the business and it sparks the thought I had when I wrote it down.

Something else that I find useful for a creative block is stepping away.

It can seem counterproductive when you’re on a time crunch, but would you rather sit at your computer frustrated for 45 minutes and still not get anywhere. Or step away for a while and knock out the project in half the time when you get back to it.

Powering through is not the solution when you’re trying to be in a creative mindset. 

What type of post content should businesses share more often vs less frequently?
Is there a difference based on whether they are service-based or product-based businesses?

In the end, the best content is the content that engages the user.

Usually creating content that does one or more of the following things is what should be posted more often.

Emotionally connective, inclusive, pain point solving, or humorous content are all winners.

Things that should be posted less is any content that doesn’t connect or engage your audience. Things like stats or accolades that make no impact on the user are often only meant to make the business look good.

Information about your business that doesn’t give value or solve a pain point, just because it’s informative about your business doesn’t mean users are going to find it helpful.

And yes, product vs service-based businesses should be posting differently depending on the user profile. That’s a subject I can go on and on about!

But if one of the four suggestions I mentioned apply, it’s usually winning content. That’s the simple answer. And I’m always available for anyone looking to go deeper into this one!

How often should I as an entrepreneur evaluate my business’ performance on social media?
And what are the key metrics in your view I should be tracking and looking at?

Ideally, I suggest evaluating every 2 weeks to 1 month. Especially if your audience has grown or if you’re seeing a decline in engagement.

The two metrics I always suggest clients start tracking are Engagement and Reach.

  • Engagement means people are interacting with you and that means you’re providing them value.
  • Reach is the number of unique accounts that have seen your content.

These two usually increase or decrease together, but it’s still important to take note. Depending on your business, other metrics should be tracked that are directly related to a business goal. Like clicks and traffic metrics. 

Take us behind the scenes. What does a typical work day look like for you?

Each day is a little different depending on if I have meetings or calls, but for the most part it looks a little like this…

Like many people, my day starts with a strong cup of coffee. I like to take a look at what’s on my list for the day as I plan out priority tasks to accomplish first. Addressing those things that matter most to my business is key to continued success for me.

From there I like to review engagement on platforms that I manage, both my own and my clients. Engage with comments and check out other accounts.

Then I move on to the longer projects that will take some time and focus, usually content creation or strategy planning.

Each day ends with another platform sweep to make sure I’ve engaged with my audiences and not missed any opportunities to communicate with them.

And any time I can get a mid-day siesta is an added bonus! That’s a perk of being a business owner. 😉 

What are your favorite tools and apps that you cannot survive without?

A good scheduling tool like Hootsuite. There are several out there to choose from. I’ve always preferred Hootsuite, but that’s me.

Also, platform Insight or monitoring tools like Sprout Social to help you look at performance. Those two would be in my social media survival kit. 

If someone wants to hire you, what’s the best way to contact you? 

I kind of leave that up to the individual. Email is always good, but sometimes people like to DM or call. I’m pretty easy to get in touch with.

For the sake of this question, let’s say email: info [@] hellosocially.com

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. But before you go, do you have any other final tips for small businesses how to master their social media presence? 

Don’t give up!

Even when it feels like you’re talking to an empty room, give yourself time to figure out what works best for you. Always be testing to find your best content and keep making progress.

And finally, treat your small following like they’re a big following! You want them to become your brand advocates, not just a number at the top of your profile.

If you were standing in a room talking to 150 people you would appreciate each one that chose to be there to listen to you. Do the same for your social media audience and give them value with each interaction with your business. 

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on email

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

You may also enjoy these articles:

ARRA design Studio is closing Down

If you want to stay in touch, bookmark our new site >> Flodesk Maven.