What to Know Before Hiring a Social Media Manager

Are you thinking about hiring a social media manager for your company? Although it may be tempting to immediately jump into delegating this responsibility so you can take one more thing off your team’s plate, it’s crucial to ensure that your company is ready to begin working with a social media marketing agency in the first place. Doing so will help to build a great working relationship between you and the agency you hire.

What are some things you should know before diving into this process? Keep reading to find out.

5 Things to Remember Before Delegating Social Media

Social Media Alone Won’t Guarantee Massive Results

Social media isn’t the golden ticket to success for your business, especially if you aren’t executing other marketing tactics with it. Sure, you might receive some traction on your posts and an increase in followers, but if you have big goals for your business, isolating your marketing strategy to only social media isn’t going to help you get there.

Why is that the case? It’s the concept of dumping all of your eggs into one basket. By restricting yourself to only one source, you’re missing out on the opportunities that you could receive through several other sources, such as email marketing, PR, blogging, podcasting, and more. If you’d like to achieve bigger results, it’s important to look beyond what you’re currently doing and incorporate more strategies into your overall plan.

You Need to Be Involved

Just because you’re hiring a company to manage your social media doesn’t mean that you can be free of the responsibility completely. There is still some level of involvement that’s required from the in-house team to ensure ultimate success. What does that entail?

• Providing visual assets — photos, videos, audio clips, etc. — that can be used with the content that’s created for social media
• Giving timely feedback and approvals on content created to ensure that deadlines are met
• Sharing industry knowledge and company news that can be incorporated for thought leadership content

By not working with your social media manager closely, you’re ultimately setting them up for failure because they don’t have what they need to be successful in their role. We’re experts at what we do, but we’re not experts at what you do, which is why it’s crucial to be involved. If you personally don’t have the time to work intimately with the agency you hire, or you don’t have a team member who would be able to take on this responsibility, it’s best to wait until you have a dedicated point person who can do so.

Social Media Isn’t Responsible for Sales

If you approach your organic social media presence with an expectation to increase your sales, you’re going to be disappointed. Why? Social media isn’t responsible for sales. Rather, social media is meant to:

• Grow your audience
• Build thought leadership
• Establish brand awareness
• Drive website traffic

Additionally, social media has a longer sales cycle, especially if your company sells a higher ticket item. This is why it’s vital to understand the customer journey and where your leads fall within it. You’d be surprised to find out how many times we’ve had potential clients book consultation calls with us who share, “I’ve been following you for three years now and am finally ready to reach out!”

People may take longer before they’re ready to make a purchase, which is why it’s important to not look at social media as a sales tool but rather as a method for providing value and increasing your credibility.

If building your sales is the biggest priority to your company, it’s likely that you need a salesperson — not a social media manager.

Social Media Managers Aren’t Responsible for Other Marketing Tasks

If you’re hiring a social media manager, you’re hiring them for that: social media. Don’t expect to receive a videographer, photographer, graphic designer, or project manager in that person, too.

There’s a big misconception that just because someone is a rockstar at social media management, it means that they can, and should, do everything that’s involved in social media: creating and editing videos, capturing photos, designing graphics, running paid ads, and more.

However, just because it’s used in social media doesn’t mean that those responsibilities or skills fall under the scope of the social media manager. Most importantly, if they are able to complete all of those marketing deliverables, it’s crucial that they’re paid accordingly for it and not just expected to include it in the current package.

Successfully managing an organization’s social media presence takes a lot of time, especially with things that are happening behind-the-scenes that may not be visible to the public eye, so there’s a reason why many social media managers limit what they offer.

You Need a Website — and a Good One

There used to be a time where people thought they didn’t need a website because Instagram could act as their website — and we certainly hope that’s not still the case. Why? Although your Instagram account is your account, you don’t fully own it — Meta does. That means that, at any time, your account could be taken away from you, and everything that you built up would be gone.

Yikes.

Unlike social media, you fully control and own your website, therefore ensuring that your content and platform are protected. How can you use your website and social media together?

Social media acts as a vehicle to drive the individuals who are interested in what you offer from your social media profiles to your website, because your website shares who you are, what you do, and how you help. From there, it’s your website that converts these individuals from simply consuming your content to now taking the next step in the buying process, whether it’s filling out a contact form or booking a consultation call.

If you see that social media is bringing hundreds of website visits to your website each month, you know that social media is doing its job of driving people to the next destination. However, now it’s up to the website or landing page to do its job of converting these people. If no conversions are happening from the website or landing page, that’s an indication that there’s an issue with a site, not with your social media.

How to Find a Social Media Manager

Guaranteeing the Right Fit

We always recommend that companies chat with a handful of social media marketing agencies before moving forward with one to ensure it’s the right fit. When both parties come together to achieve a common goal, truly remarkable results can happen in your online presence.

If you’re interested in working with a social media manager, learn more about booking a consultation with Dash of Social®.