There are currently over 3 million businesses actively advertising just on Facebook alone.

These numbers are pretty daunting if you’re trying to compete for visibility in social.

But it clearly shows how important Facebook marketing has become for businesses today – not to mention all the other popular social networks that each boast millions (or billions) of users.

The job of the social media manager used to be the domain of interns or specialists, only requiring them to post organic content to gain any benefit from the various social media platforms.

Today, however, you face a new social media landscape.

Here are just a couple of major changes we saw this year:

Staying up to date on these changes requires a subject matter expert to keep a keen eye, to make sure that the brands they work for have continued success in social media platforms.

It’s great to have an existing employee who perhaps works on other tasks within the company, contributing to social media efforts.

However, you’re far better off hiring a social media manager to help manage, maintain, and execute social media campaigns and provide a better return on your spend and investment.

Here are the top five reasons why you need to have a social media manager.

1. The Social Landscape Is Always Changing

A social media manager can keep track of any algorithm changes and new trends within the platform, but also adapt your strategy and the content based on the latest updates.

In addition, a social media manager needs to be open-minded with regard to new platforms and consider what strategies you should put in place immediately for you to be successful in those new platforms.

Take TikTok for example. As of October 2020, TikTok surpassed over 2 billion mobile downloads worldwide, so it’s safe to say your brand should be there because I can assure you that your competitor is.

The same goes for new features within an existing social media platform. Remember when Reels and Shops went live late last year on Instagram? Did your team get together to find out how to maximize the use of those new areas with the platform?

A social media manager can take in what changes are either happening or soon to take place, and be agile, so can go back to the drawing board with their clients and change campaign objectives, and content to provide continued success with regards to their goals.

2. Engagement in Social Media Is Necessary

An employee posting at random on your social media profiles, having no plan, will do a disservice to your brand.

If that’s your current state of being, I strongly advise that you go back to the drawing board.

Social media is not a set-it-and-forget-it tactic. In many ways, this approach can do greater harm than good. This is why engagement is so important.

Engaging with your users – whether that be within a page or group – has to happen. Why? Social media is a two-way conversation and your brand’s users want to know that the brand they care about, also cares about them.

A social media manager can and should always be monitoring the brand’s pages, not only for reputation management (read below on more about that topic) but also for obtaining additional insights that could help your brand.

Curious about what new product to sell or need guidance on what your users want to read about? Ask them!

Your social media manager will be able to bake in their campaigns to all other campaigns you’re working on.

Responding to your users’ feedback, whether it be positive or negative is essential and is another way to show that your brand is listening and taking the feedback seriously.

Utilizing social media as a customer experience enhancement tool helps get your users the help they need.

Say they bought the wrong size of an item? Guaranteed a customer would head towards social media first in order to get their issue resolved.

Being helpful in the social media space will also provide your user with a better experience as they would be able to get their issue resolved in a platform that they are comfortable with.

3. Protect Your Reputation & Help Your Customers

Social media manager(s) are constantly on high alert to each message, review, and comment happening within social media regarding a brand.

Not only do they have the right process in place with regards to triaging, but also they’re aware of how to conduct themselves within the platform, representing the brand.

Hiring an individual who has a great deal of experience in this area is huge, as within seconds a social media manager can help mitigate and solve an issue that would have otherwise turned into a disaster if a less-seasoned individual would have put in the role.

It’s vital that the social media manager develops not only the right voice and language of the brand within social media but also works with other individuals within the business – like customer support and PR – so contingency plans are put in place, well before a social media crisis takes place.

The action of responding to a comment, whether it’s good or bad, should also be done within a certain timeframe. The sooner, the better.

Your brand can either help solve a problem for an existing or future customer or client, or make someone respect how your brand conducts itself on social media.

4. Growing Your Audience

Someone who’s in charge of growing your audience should reside under a social media manager’s KPIs. Growing your social media audience is essentially a megaphone in the digital space.

According to a September 2020 study, 51% of respondents stated that their purchasing decisions were influenced by social media, and 29% of individuals were influenced by social media that they would purchase an item the same day of using social media.

Think of your social media audience as your ambassadors, who would help share the benefits of using your brand’s products.

As your audience grows, the credibility of your brand grows.

Not only that but trust in your brand grows, too.

Is your business or brand looking to also partner with other brands? Having a large audience within social media also improves your “street cred” thus bringing more opportunities to your brand.

Did you write a blog post or launch a new feature within your site and want to get the word out?

Having a large audience can help spread the good news, which in turn can grow not only your social media base but also grow your leads and revenue.

5. Reporting & Tracking

Having a manager who is in charge of all your social media efforts can help you improve your existing campaign.

But a social media manager can also keep your brand agile – switching objectives, creatives, or content if your current efforts aren’t doing as well as they could be.

A social media manager will check their campaigns regularly – turning underperforming ads off and optimizing other campaigns to make sure you’re money is being well spent and your goals are being met.

A social media manager will look at campaigns over time and will know if a tactic is becoming fatigued or if the strategy should be adjusted.

This provides tremendous value at the end of the month reporting as they will provide documentation telling a story of:

• What was executed that month?
• How well it did compared to previous months.
• What should be done next?

Sometimes campaigns will have a continuing success and can lead to other great ideas, which wouldn’t necessarily be the case if you didn’t have someone dedicated to these efforts around the clock.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you now can see that you’d be far better off hiring a social media manager than not.

Someone who can contribute 100% to your brand’s strategy and goals will yield a much better result than having an intern or low-level employee posting content at random on behalf of your brand.

More Social Media Marketing Resources:

Featured image: Irina Strelnikova/Shutterstock