We have talked with people who want to begin a career as a social media manager. That’s great! What no one tells you about social media management, though is that it’s not as “easy” as it looks and it’s not as glamorous as you might imagine.
During our time in social media management and in working with our clients to help them put together a social media and online marketing strategy here is what we have discovered.
What no one tells you about social media management
- You can’t fake it. There are no short cuts to social media management. There are no hacks other than using a social media scheduler, but social media still means you need to be there to interact and be social. Social media success is a marathon.
- It is tedious. You’re working from a social media editorial calendar and you aren’t posting the same content daily, but you are posting content daily and much of it may seem rote, but it’s necessary.
- The bigger numbers of followers don’t mean you have won the race. Engagement is key. Anyone can buy followers and say, “I have a million followers” but of those million, how many are active and engaged?
- Speaking of engagement. You need to be online to engage with those followers who comment on your posts. It is time consuming.
- Insights are nice, but they may not be able to be directly traced to a sale. Insights may not be able to help you fully predict trends.
- You’ve mastered a social platform and it changes. How many times have you logged into Facebook and noticed it’s changed overnight. It happens and that means you will need to rethink your strategy.
- The industry is saturated with companies trying to do what you’re doing. You need to take steps to stand out from the crowd.
Social media may be fun and it can be fun. If you’re doing it for a living, though it can become tedious very quickly. What do you love about social media? What do you hate about social media?