In the last decade, businesses have seen social media marketing explode as they realized that 75% of consumers make buying decisions influenced by social media.
Many entrepreneurs decide to go it on their own—forgoing the use of a professional. They assume that they can take the DIY approach and save a little money doing so.
That’s a huge error.
Just because someone has an active personal Facebook page doesn’t mean that they know how to scrutinize analytics and algorithms, understand cross-platform capabilities and have a grip on the fundamentals of digital design and effective content marketing. This skill set requires special education, training and certifications. Casual users of social media are ill-equipped to handle the complexity of social media—and at the end of the day, there are missed opportunities and lost revenue.
The standard marketing functions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social media. Social media platforms are being used for client service, lead generation, employee recruiting and brand recognition programs. Ultimately, an investment in a professional social media marketer – who is familiar with emerging social technologies, would be in the best interest of your business, your personal life, and your long term goals.
It’s more than just hitting “post” or “share”:
Many people think that if they “Share” or “Tweet” they can run their own social strategy—but it is much, much more than that. A successful social media strategy is run with 3/6/9 month goals. It’s run with an editorial calendar and an influencer list. It’s having several weeks of content planned in advance, with correct titles, compelling images and captions in place. It’s interacting with the current follower-base. Once your content is posted, a specialist needs to then promote it for optimal social amplification. From there, content and interactions require observing, managing, and reporting on the end results.
Social Media Specialists see a broader perspective.
It’s easy to miss things when we’re in the center of it all. It certainly helps to bring in an unbiased perspective who can lend their professional experience and see things through a lens that views campaigns in terms of creativity, engagements, impressions, and social amplification. They can lend their creativity and experience in ways perhaps you never thought possible and give you ideas that you never even considered. A social media specialist brings forth a fresh perspective most would not consider, and it can help improve your online presence.
You can’t do it all.
At the end of the day a successful business owner cannot do it all. We all like to think we can, but really, life is like juggling – in life, we’re just trying to juggle several plates. At some point, someone will toss you a plate and you’ll have to drop another one to catch it. Same can be said for your marketing strategy. Delegating complex social media-specific tasks to a specialist ensures that they’ll know what to post, how to post it, and how to interact online in a way that will bring you exposure, traffic, and revenue.