A social media manager in many companies today carries a very heavy marketing load and responsibility. They need to monitor social media platforms that the company is into to find out what communities are talking about the company, manage the companies social media profiles, share, or posts new information or content, and engage in continuous conversations with customers and potentials. The social media manager is sometimes even called up by management to support other departments with their own social media platform to further enhance marketing.

If a company has an active social media manager, then they should view this person as a partner when formulating marketing campaigns for the company, whether for traditional or online strategies.

Planning

During the planning stages, top management and the social media manager should discuss marketing objectives, the target audience, and how to achieve those objectives. They need to understand the many needs of their target audience and how to meet these through social media. This includes creating and posting information, receiving, and sharing information, and networking. The social media manager must strive to show top management specific conversations or the like from customers or potentials that directly affect the brand, product, or company. There should also be an active discussion on how to deal with complaints and in answering questions.

This phase naturally now belongs to the social media marketers and its manager, but top management should still give its full support. Marketers here now engage actively and often directly with participating customers and inquirers. Content that the social media manager directly creates should be totally supported by the latest pictures or videos that management should provide. Company activities and new products or upgrades should be highlighted in real-time. FAQs from customers and potentials should always be addressed even if other customers have already asked these questions repeatedly.

Follow-up and Support Is a Must for All Marketing Campaigns

Management should support its social media marketing team and its manager since it is this team that reinforces messages and helps keep customers remain connected with the company or to each other in anticipation of the bigger marketing goal. The social media marketing team understands which social media platform is active at any one time, such as when a new product upgrade is introduced with a hashtag announced with it, so marketers monitor its Twitter account closely. Or perhaps a private LinkedIn group can be formed for all its active customers so everyone can share and stay in touch while sharing external sources related to or even unrelated to the brand and company.

For companies to succeed with their social media marketing efforts and their social media manager, they must stop treating social media as just a support group or even an optional marketing effort. Social media marketing should never be treated as just another task for multi-tasking marketers in connection with its SEO or other marketing activities. Social media must be an integral part of all the company’s marketing processes and planning.

Video Source | YouTube Video