The addition of a social media manager to your staff can offer
consistency to your brand’s presence and free up your time to focus on running
the business. This person will be acting as the voice for your company on some
very community channels.
Many businesses know the buzz words or the necessary
functions of the community manager’s role on social channels but aren't clear
on what they really need or what a community manager does beyond tweeting and
posting. A community manager’s role is frequently broader than businesses
suppose.
A social media community manager’s job is to drive
visibility and engagement of a brand through social media channels. They have
to be careful to spot their company in the best possible light while being
responsive to all kinds of comments and questions, all while projecting an
approachable, knowledgeable and genuine brand personality.
Community managers also have to source and generate
consistent, reliable streams of content that are applicable to both the
business and their audience for all of these channels. The following are a few
things to look for when hiring a social media manager for your little business.
1. No knowledge
Since the field is somewhat new, there is no set career path
that someone looking to be a social media manager should follow. You may need
to do some interrogating to assess a candidate’s real knowledge.
A smart applicant will want to reveal that expertise clearly
on a resume. If that experience is missing, tread carefully. While it is
possible that a bright person can learn skills quickly on the job, you will most
likely be better off teaching a new hire the details of your industry rather
than helping him or her learn the social media angle.
2. Lack of perseverance
The responsibilities for maintaining all of a brand's social media channels add up to a heavy load for one person. It’s completely possible
that a social media manager can feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of tasks,
updates and responses that the job demands.
Someone with just a passing interest in either social media
or in your business is less likely to have the drive to stick with a job that
requires near-immersion in mutually. Make sure that you have faith in the
candidate’s commitment to the work and that he or she is clear about your
expectations for what the spot entails.
3. Reporting and analytics
A community manager should have an exceptional handle on
engagement and visibility metrics. They need to be able to gauge the
effectiveness of both individual pieces of content as well as the program as a
whole.
If your community manager has some marketing operations
background, they may be skillful at integrating these social-specific metrics
with marketing campaigns and programs focused on customer attainment and
conversion.
4. Business savvy
Community managers also comprise to have enough business
savvy to take advantage of on opportunities as they arise. News stories and
memes become old news at an extraordinarily fast rate.
Having excellent relationships with internal business
partners is a key. Community managers will field a broad range of questions
from best practices, to support, to sales, to PR. They have to know what the
right answer is and where to find it speedily.
5. beyond the tweet
Often, a community manager’s role extends far beyond this
description. Sometimes this is out of necessity because many companies don’t
have social media-specific roles beyond this title.
Other times community managers started off in other
specialties. Think about where the community manager will sit in your
organization and what other needs you might have.
Even if your association has a social strategist or
director, hiring someone who has skills in a mixture of areas makes good sense.
Social is cross-functional by nature and intersects with just about every area
of the business.
6. Social business integration
Also, if your company doesn't have a digital strategist or a
marketing manager who truly understands how to use social for programs and
campaigns that drive business, the burden of social business addition might
fall to this person as well.
Ideally, social should already be included into all areas of
business. But, practically speaking, this level of change management hasn't occurred at most businesses, large or small.
A community manager’s role is to drive visibility and
engagement of a brand through social media channels while projecting an
approachable and genuine brand personality. Follow these tips to find the
social media manager that’s right for your big business.
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