I know that as a business owner, there’s a good chance you don’t want to do your own social media (you’d rather focus on your business) and/or your social media is the last thing on your list. Or… you’re spinning your wheels doing it on your own.
You’d LOVE to offload it, or at the very least get some direction – and you may even be getting to a place where you are thinking about hiring someone or having an employee do your social media for you.
Unpopular opinion: DON’T!!!!!! That is… Until you’re really, really ready. And you have some stuff in place first.
Because I don’t want you to waste your time or money!
Before you hire someone to do your social media, you MUST have these things in place first and I’m going to go down the list one by one – from tools to expectations.
Some of these may seem simple, but truly, I’ve seen it all and I want you to get the most out of your experience and (hopefully), so will whoever you hire.
#1: Have access to all your accounts. If you have a franchise or someone else set up your account for you, make sure you have ADMIN access so you can give access to a creator you hire to manage posts. In Facebook, make sure you have access to Business Manager AND ads manager – as an ADMIN not a user.
#2: Have all your passwords in one secret place. I can’t tell you how many people have had someone set up their social for them and they don’t have their own passwords themselves.
#3: Have an understanding of what you need and what your budget is to achieve it. Do you want daily posts? Every other day? Ads? Ad creation? Videos? Emails? Lead magnets? Strategy? Coaching? SEO? Google My Business? PR? If you have a small budget, consider hiring a virtual assistant or having someone within your company perform the tasks, but know that while these are more affordable options, this level usually is not expert-level and you may need to prioritize which tasks you need to outsource. Also know that posting daily is usually what is needed for success, and daily posts will cost more than sporadic posts.
#4: Do not expect massive growth with sporadic posting. If your budget only allows for a couple posts a week, you cannot blame your social media manager for slow growth. If that social media manager is good, they will post QUALITY content for those few posts AND sometimes there is an outlier, a post that does well that leads to great growth, but if your budget only allows for a few posts, do not blame your social media manager if you’re not growing.
#5 Content creation means: shooting photos, shooting videos, editing videos, designing graphics & stories, writing the copy both on screen and in the caption, being on top of trends, adapting trends, writing scripts for you, scheduling out posts, and helping you do lives – which are all time consuming. Also, each platform is a little different, so each piece of content that is created gets its own little touch on each platform, it’s not just drag and drop. Content planning is important and adapting the content to your style and voice are also an art of their own. Social listening is also important – knowing when and how to hop into a national conversation or knowing when and how to stay silent if there are tragic events unfolding so you don’t appear tone deaf is also important. A good content creator will know how to do this but the expertise level will likely be reflected in the price. The bottom line is: THIS IS A LOT OF WORK. A good content creator will be paying attention to every little detail and spending a lot of time on each of their posts for you.
#6 Know what your goals are. Many business owners tell me they want engagement and followers, but really they want sales or they want to go viral. Be honest about what you want. Hint: Viral does not equal sales if you’re going viral with the wrong audience.
#7: Have your accounts ready for virality or for sales, if that’s what you want. Posting about a specific product that followers will have to dig through on your website to find will likely result in click-aways rather than purchases. Have calls to action that direct people to what you want your followers to do and then make that process as seamless as possible, with as few clicks as possible. Remove any roadblocks to purchase. Hint: If you don’t have this set up, a good social media manager will see this and will set this up for you. If this is not set up, do not expect good social media posts to convert into sales.
#8: This is about expectations. This one’s big. To do well on social media, you must understand how IMPORTANT it is to your business. Stop putting it last. If you want to hire a social media manager, they will ask you for information or video opportunities so they can shoot and edit content for you or write stories about you to bring a personal touch to your social media presence. If you provide them with zero assets, information or opportunities to get video or photos, or you expect them to make something out of nothing, you will be making their job impossible and wasting their time and yours. Put aside some time to give your content creator what they need or they will not be able to be consistent and you will not get the results you want. You will be setting them up for failure and I see this heartbreak among social media managers all the time.
#9: Social media will not SAVE your business. You may do well on it, you may make sales, but if you’re expecting your entire business to succeed on social media alone, you will need a new business model.
#10 Each digital marketing task is a different job. If you need a social media manager and you also want to do email marketing and ads and lead generation, you will get a package price with those tasks and the time it takes to complete such tasks. If it’s outside your budget to do all of that, you will have to prioritize and add tasks as your budget allows down the line. A good social media manager or strategist will help you figure this out.
#11 BONUS AND VERY IMPORTANT! Pay your contractor/employee on time or they will no longer work with you. Industry standard is paying the monthly retainer BEFORE work begins. They will likely have a discovery call with you to help you determine what you will need, then they will send you price options. Once you pick a package, they will send you a contract. You can go month-to-month or for best results, three month minimum to see results. Whatever you pick, remember, they are running a business just like you are. They likely have contractors to help, and they pay for schedulers, editing tools, equipment, software, their expertise and TIME. Just as you request payment for your products or services, they can’t stay afloat by continuing to do work for you without payment. You can’t walk out of Walmart with a brand new TV you didn’t pay for. Don’t expect your social media manager or strategist to work for free.
There’s a lot to know before you hire someone to help you with your social media, whether it’s to do it for you or to help you strategize and teach you how to run your own social media successfully. I hope this helps!
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