With all that you need to do in your business, it can get difficult to provide the necessary bandwidth to keep up with social media. We all know by now that social media is a key marketing resource for businesses to use to engage with your customers and promote your brand online, but it can be difficult to give it the effort and attention it really needs to become a valuable resource. Because of these problems, many have turned to hiring consultants to specialize in managing and maintaining a businesses’ online presence to ensure that posts happen on time and customers are engaged. While this can be very useful, it also takes away the opportunity for people inside your company to interact and learn from customers via social media. Below are four important reasons why you should monitor your own social media:
-Provide personal communication: Even with extensive background and materials, hired consultants will never truly be a part of your team. Yes, a consultant can engage your audience with their posts, and often do a good job at it, but they do not have the same company voice that you do. Communication with your “fans” is important as these people are valuable customers, and they will be more likely to trust in your brand and products if they feel they are engaging with important people within your company when they reach out to you through social media. Surveys have shown that an overwhelming majority of fans have more faith and confidence in a company that has its high up executives, especially those in C-suites, engaging in social media avenues.
-Define company values: There is no comparison between a hired consultant and an employee who spends each day at your company when it comes to understanding your values. While a consultant can try to capture and promote what needs to be promoted, an employee is much better at doing this as they spend their entire career communicating those values in many different contexts. Social media is the easiest way to give your company a personality that fans can see, and it is important that the personality you choose to project is one that is directly in line with your company values and culture.
- Create fluid posts: When a consultant is hired to manage your social media, they will most likely do so systematically. This means that they will schedule your Facebook/Twitter/Blog posts on a timeline which can start to come off as static and generic. In order to truly utilize social media and engage with fans, communication needs to be impromptu, fluid, and quick, which can only be done if you have employees frequently monitoring the accounts. It is important to make customers feel like they are truly interacting and having a conversation with members of the company through social media, instead of just receiving news and email blasts with little consideration for customer requests and questions. Having this open communication is key to increasing your followers as it gives people an incentive to keep up with what is being posted.
-No time constraints: You are just one of many clients to a consultant, and though they may care about your business, they will often stick to the set amount of content that you both agreed to instead of going above and beyond. Using an in-house employee to head up your social media eliminates those terms and conditions and employees can constantly be on the lookout for new things to post whenever they see it instead of sticking solely to a set schedule.
Overall, yes it can be hard to give your social media the attention it needs. Other things get in the way and pressing projects puts those posts that you planned to draft to the backburner. Hiring a consultant to take care of this seems like a great way to lighten your load, but it can also hinder the way you communicate with your fans and the image you project online. Point blank, you have more passion for your business than a hired consultant will ever have, no matter how good they are. It is important to communicate that passion to your online community if you want to see positive yields out of these sites.
If you’re wondering about how Frontier handles it’s social media, head on over to our Facebook page to get an introduction to our West Region social media representative, Kate!
Compiled from these articles from Entrepreneur and BusinessWire
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