Social networking is not only a necessary component of modern life; it is a vital part of a business’s brand and marketing strategy. We often think of social media managers as superhumans who manage social media single-handedly. However, an organization’s social media is often managed by teams of individuals with diverse skills and expertise.
As you establish your social media team, you should approach it with the same level of attention and devotion that you would to any other marketing function. Social media marketing should not be grafted onto the obligations of an entry-level marketing function as a side project or afterthought. Simply put, professional social media management is not always a role that can be filled on an entry-level basis.
So, how can you go about assembling the best social media team?
There are several questions you’ll need to consider, for example:
What skills does your team require? How should the team be structured? How do you recruit new members to your team?
In this article, we’ll explain and walk you through the process of assembling a stellar social media team.
BUILDING A SOCIAL MEDIA SUPER SQUAD
Pulling a social media team together is no small task and, quite frankly, rather a broad topic to cover in a single article. For brevity, we’ve broken this information into easy-to-understand, bite-sized chunks for you to explore and consider.
EVALUATE YOUR PRESENT SITUATION
Assessing your current status is an excellent place to start when it comes to assembling your social media team. Numerous factors about your current situation might affect your decisions about your social media team.
These may include:
1. BUDGET:
Your budget can impact several essential hiring decisions, including the number of employees you can hire and the tools your team can utilize.
2. WORKFORCE:
Rather than employing new team members, you may find that existing employees are interested in working on or assisting with social media. Alternatively, perhaps everyone in your business would like to devote some time to social media.
3. RESOURCES:
Resources might include marketing automation software or physical assets such as images produced by your media team or articles published by your content team. Having such tools can help your team be more productive and may even allow you to minimize the number of employees on your team.
ENSURE YOU THAT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY IS IN LINE WITH YOUR BUSINESS GOALS.
Outline how social media may benefit your company. Setting goals has been shown to boost an individual’s motivation and performance. This becomes more crucial as you grow your social media team. Knowing your objectives can assist you in determining the optimal team size, structure, and type of people you want to employ. (It’s also a great idea to review your goals with your team once you recruit them and make any necessary adjustments.) It’s worth mentioning that social media usage has expanded beyond marketing to include customer service, community development, and public relations in recent years.
Here are ten examples of social media objectives you could explore:
- Traffic: To increase the amount of traffic to your website or blog.
- Lead Generation: To elicit critical information from prospective clients.
- Brand Awareness: To develop a presence on social media and expand your reach
- Increased revenue: To boost signups or sales
- Community Building: To find and amass brand advocates
- Engagement: To establish a connection with and engage your audience
- Customer service: Helping and supporting your clients
- Public Relations: To share news, foster relationships, and demonstrate thought leadership
- Hiring: To attract the best talent to your business
- Social listening and research: To hear from your clients and better understand your market.
Whether you’re new to social media and want to recruit your first employee or trying to grow your current social media team, it’s critical to examine how social media can help you reach your overall business goals. By establishing a connection between social media and your company’s goals and objectives, you can begin to envision the sort of team you’ll need to assemble.
HOW MANY EMPLOYEES WILL YOU REQUIRE?
The optimal size of a social media team is an intriguing topic to investigate. It’s almost as if you’re asking what the optimal size of a business is, and there is no right or wrong response!
The following are some considerations to consider when determining the optimal team size:
- Your hiring budget: The larger the budget, the larger the team you can grow.
- Social media resources: The more resources you have (e.g., tools, photos, and content) the fewer people you will almost certainly require.
- Your social media objectives: The more ambitious your goals, the more people you’ll require.
- Your company’s objectives: The more critical social media is to your business, the larger your team may need to be.
WHAT SKILLS DO MEMBERS OF A SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM REQUIRE?
When determining the size of your social media team, it may be beneficial to understand the various roles and skills necessary.
Generally, a social media team will comprise these five roles:
(A single multi-skilled individual may do all of these functions in certain circumstances, although bigger companies may allocate many people to each task.)
1. SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
A social media manager takes a broad view of social media and is frequently responsible for developing the team’s strategy and planning. They may also undertake most social media tasks in a small team, including maintaining all social media profiles, posting content, listening, responding to comments, and analyzing.
2. CONTENT CREATOR
A content creator is someone who creates material specifically for social media posts. This information can take the form of blog articles, photos, and videos. Due to the scope of this task, they may occasionally double as the social media team’s designer. Additionally, they may be in charge of preparing content intended by the social media manager for scheduling and publication.
3. COMMUNITY MANAGER
A community manager’s primary objective on social media is to engage and interact with your audience and consumers.
Their duties often include:
- Monitoring important social media conversations.
- Responding to comments and enquiries.
- Planning social media events such as Twitter chats or Facebook Live sessions.
They are frequently referred to as the company’s face and play a critical part in your business’s interaction with its most ardent supporters and advocates.
4. PAID MEDIA SPECIALIST
A paid media specialist is responsible for paid social media advertising on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. They are often quantitative individuals who love experimenting with various ad kinds and creatives, assessing the results of social media advertisements, and optimizing ad campaigns for optimum ROI.
5. SOCIAL DATA ANALYST
A social data analyst delves into the data and metrics relating to your social media initiatives, including engagement rates, traffic, click-through rates, conversions, and maybe income. They are often the technical person that can assist in setting up the right tracking system and doing statistical analysis on your team’s outcomes.
Here are a few other responsibilities that may fall under the umbrella of a social media team, particularly if your organization is considerably larger:
- Public relations specialist
- Customer service specialist
- Salesperson
- Partnership coordinator
DETERMINE THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF YOUR TEAM.
After determining the size of your team and the responsibilities necessary to accomplish your objectives, you can choose the structure of your social media team. Suppose you’re searching for ideas on how to structure your team. In that case, Sallie Burnett’s five suggested methods to structure a social media team are a wonderful place to start.
Sallie defines the following five structures:
- Organic: An open-ended configuration
- Centralized: A social media team that operates independently
- Hub and spoke: A core team that collaborates with different divisions within the organization.
- Multiple hub and spoke or “Dandelion” social media teams: A central social media team supported by smaller social media teams in other departments.
- Holistic: Every employee is active in some capacity with social media.
STRENGTHEN THE TIES THAT BIND
To establish a successful team, you must begin with a solid foundation. Providing a strategy may assist in grounding a person and instill a sense of purpose in them from the start. As you engage in social hiring, establish a clear objective for your recruits and a comprehensive onboarding strategy. Even if they are not actively recruiting new employees, marketing directors should maintain a commitment to team development.
Social media trends (and disasters) occur at breakneck speed, meaning brief morning huddles can stimulate ideas, clarify goals, and reduce any dangers your material may cause.
Continuous team development is vital since social media marketers frequently experience burnout. A dynamic social media marketing team may significantly influence company goals at all stages of the funnel. If your social marketers feel encouraged and heard, they are more likely to speak out when they are worried or overwhelmed by their social media job.
Assembling a team might be one of a manager’s most difficult things. This task gets much more difficult due to the relative youth of social media as a career. Having stated that, there are several methods to establish or structure a team—so don’t be concerned if your social media team appears a little different from other businesses’ social media teams—sometimes our greatest strengths lie in our differences.