DEV Community

Cover image for 10 Crucial Tips For Better Social Media Management [Plus Tools]
Dev Write Ups
Dev Write Ups

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at rahulism.hashnode.dev

10 Crucial Tips For Better Social Media Management [Plus Tools]

According to the latest social media statistics, there are about 3.78 billion users worldwide across different social media platforms. That is almost 48 percent of the total world population and this number will continue to grow for the next few years. This makes social media one of the most ideal ways to reach customers wherever in the world they may be.

In the modern business scenario, social media management lets one discover opportunities to improve visibility and maximize the advantages of social media marketing. Social Media Examiner figured out from their studies that up to 97% of small businesses have shifted to social media for attracting new customers.

Why Have a Reliable Social Media Strategy?

Many studies have shown that social media marketing is effective at increasing brand awareness. The problem, however, is that many business owners still fail to implement effective social media marketing campaigns that actually drive sales. What they mostly lack is a solid social media strategy that is integral in creating a captivating marketing campaign.

A solid social media strategy is essential because of the following reasons:

  1. It Helps Build A Strong and Organic Presence.

A strong, organic presence online is what counts when it comes to social media marketing. With a solid plan of action, you can be able to maintain a consistent posting schedule that helps with this goal.

  1. It Allows You to Save Time

Time is an important resource in using social media for marketing. A solid strategy lets you get everything in order from sorting out different posts down to posting schedules. A content bank and calendar would minimize the time that is usually wasted on figuring out what to post when. You can spend more time finishing other tasks with the time you saved this way.

  1. It Makes You Target Audience More Effectively

With better planning, you can add audience engagement elements to your marketing strategy. Polls or open-ended questions, for example, will allow you to study the audiences’ pain points. You can then find better solutions that are valuable to your specific audience.

  1. It Allows You To Analyze The Game Plan

Not all methods work the same way. With a better strategy, you can study which elements are working in your favor and which ones do not. This would give you plenty of opportunities to refine your approach. It would allow you to look for more resources and social media management tools that can help you get creative with your posts.

  1. It Helps You Stay Focused on Your Goals

Social media management encompasses many elements and it can be pretty easy to get lost in the sea of tasks that has to be done. A solid strategy ensures that you can outline your business goals. This would make you validate whether you are on the right track and if there is a need to supplement additional strategies to meet your goals.

  1. It Makes You Stand Out

The main benefit of having a solid social media strategy is that it makes you stay ahead of the competition. You get to be more organized and be able to concentrate on developing your brand story. It prevents leaving your account dormant for days even if you take breaks in between campaigns. This makes your social media account consistent and valuable, establishing a distinct character compared to your competition.


10 Crucial Tips For Better Social Media Management

It is counterproductive to work on a social media campaign without a defined strategy. What would most likely happen is seeing your efforts go to the drain without results. Lacking the understanding of how to reach the goals of your social media marketing is mainly due to faulty management.

Here are ten tips to improve your social media management skills and finally be able to build an effective strategy to lead your business stats at their peak:

  1. Establish SMART Goals

The SMART framework in setting goals has become a standard among many industries. It simply tells you to make goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

An example of a Smart Goal when using social media is something like: “We shall increase our views by 50% within two months.”

This example goes to say that you must identify goals that will deliver a real impact on your business. What’s good in posting content when you have only a few views? You need to work on this aspect if you want to make the audience aware of your presence.

You should be able to audit your progress in achieving such goals using statistical tools. There are a variety of metrics that will show your reach per campaign. At the end of the day, these goals should create an overall impact on your social media presence in a specific time frame.

  1. Identify Which Platform Your Audience Uses

You simply cannot afford to work on multiple platforms in one go. To properly manage your time, effort, and resources, you have to know where your audience is, then focus on that platform.

There are plenty of ways how you can target your audience on the right platform. You can do surveys, monitor online interactions, and use pre-existing analytics to make data-driven decisions. You will notice how you will be able to do more for a specific campaign when you get to identify where your highly targeted audience is.

  1. Focus on Quality

You are not the only one who is on social now. One sure thing to stand out from the competition is to produce top-quality content. It should not only be relevant but also relatable, inspiring, and entertaining. Your posts will never go unnoticed if your audience can gain something from them.

  1. Build Relationships Not Merely Followers

“Social” should always be connected to your “presence”. Although it would be great to have thousands of followers, having a few hundred is enough if they regularly engage with you and the community. Your aim should always be to form meaningful relationships by constantly interacting with the audience.

You may do this by adding a chat feature on your socials. You can reply or react to their comments. Initiate conversations by asking their thoughts about your posts. Do not forget to @mention people if you are specifically addressing their concerns.

  1. Create An Editorial Calendar

The beauty of having an editorial calendar is that you never have to scramble about what to post and what to work on. By having a list of tasks that are to be done on specific days, you get to have plenty of time to fine-tune posts before they go live. This would also allow you to study future content and check whether you are repeating the same content or not.

An editorial calendar keeps everything organized while at the same time lets you maximize your resources for better reach.

  1. Get Visual

Photo and video content are what most people on social media prefer. One of the reasons is that visual posts seem to deliver content faster than having to read lengthy narratives. Text-based posts can be informative but graphics and videos are way more entertaining. Just look at the success of Instagram and its image-based feed.

What is great is that there are plenty of resources for producing stunning imagery. You just need to find a photo editor for social media marketing and you are good to go. Tools, like Removal.AI, can help you improve your photos to improve your posts and make them eye-catching and share-worthy.

  1. Automate Tasks

Knowing about what is social media management involves learning when to automate tasks. There are plenty of repetitive tasks in using social media for marketing. Say for example you are using different platforms for posting content. Aside from a content posting schedule, you can use tools to post the same content across different platforms.

Some tools will allow you to set up simple commands to automatically perform specific tasks if triggered. The minimum effort will produce maximum output when you automate tasks.

  1. Be Real

Customers tend to follow accounts that look authentic. This does not only pertain to people but also businesses. When talking about being real in social media, it is all about interacting like a real, live person. As opposed to robotic responses, giving personalized replies, even just by adding emojis, will make you look more human and relatable.

You may also show the human side of your brand by sharing office photos or team snapshots. This will encourage connection in the sense that the audience values more transparency than a faceless corporation.

  1. Answer Questions

Conversations are critical within social media networks. Customers who directly ask for information have to be addressed as these instances are a good opportunity for engagement. Better social media management considers every question coming from a customer extra visibility for the brand.

Again, do not give out generic responses that sound too robotic. Mention the customer who is asking the question and sincerely answer the question as if you are talking on a personal level.

  1. Evaluate Your Stats

It is important to know your numbers using social media metrics. This is how you can be able to analyze whether or not you are on your way to reaching your goals. Social media strategies do not work the same way and there may be a need to change or tweak your approach for it to work to your advantage.

Knowing your stats will allow you to readjust your strategies early so that you do not waste time, effort, and resources.


Top 5 Recommended Tools Automation Tools for Social Media Management

Now that you are aware of how you can be effective at social media management, the next step is to learn how you can easily apply these tips to your social media marketing. No one expects you to manage your socials 24/7. Aside from the fact that is virtually impossible to do, there are certain ways to avoid stressing yourself out. One of these is by using automation tools.

Among those who have shifted to social media marketing, 85% are not entirely sure about which social media tools to use to improve their reach and presence. Here are some of the most useful tools that you can use to help manage your social media marketing better:

  1. Buffer Publish

For Social Media Scheduling

Scheduling your posts does not only make your campaign more organized but also gives you plenty of advantages. One of the biggest advantages is affording more time for other tasks rather than pondering on what to post next. It also guarantees to have new posts regularly even during your lazy days. Finally, you can relax knowing that your audience can find your brand easily with a strong online presence.

Buffer Publish has the tools to let you plan and publish the perfect content for your social media feeds. After planning your posts, it sends out notifications when it is time for you to share them. You can use it to collaborate with your team and everyone can stay in sync with the tasks assigned to each one. You only need one dashboard to manage multiple socials.

Buffer Publish offers a basic plan for free. Although it would work well if you are using up to 3 social media channels, the features are very limited and it does not include very important analytics. The paid plan, however, is quite a steal at only $5 per month per social channel. There are plenty of features to enjoy with the paid plan, including analytics, insights, and reporting so you can have a performance overview of key metrics.

  1. Sendible

For Sending Lead Generation

Raising awareness is one of the foremost goals of social media marketing and this would not happen without generating more leads. Lead generation is one of the surest ways to grow your business. It helps you identify people who might be interested in your business. Once you got your leads, you can proceed to send out offers so they will be enticed to your business and then convert them to become loyal customers.

Sendible provides the right tools to help businesses create more impact on social media by helping them collaborate with the right clients. It has a unified dashboard so you can work on all of your social media channels in one place. This makes it easier to identify important conversations and take action immediately.

All of Sendible’s paid plans have free trial periods. It has four plans that range from $29- $399 per month. The Creator plan is perfect for an upcoming brand that has only one social media manager and is working on up to 6 social media profiles. The most popular plan is the Scale at $199 per month. It is perfect for emerging brands that need to automate admin tasks and manages up to 49 social media profiles.

  1. Pixelied.com

For Easy Graphics Generation

Graphics are what make social media posts more alive. You need to provide stunningly creative graphics, not only to impress but also to make sure that you can properly communicate your content to the audience.

Pixelied is great with graphics generation because it has a range of image editing tools and standalone solutions that are specifically designed for businesses. Its features are so easy to use that you do not need to pay for a designer to use them.

Although you can use Pixelied for free, you can only fully appreciate its use with the paid version wherein you will only pay a one-time fee. This means that you can use all of its features forever without paying monthly subscriptions. This is such a good deal, especially that you need to post visuals on all of your social media accounts.

  1. Removal.ai

For Instant BG Removal

When it comes to social media marketing, staging your products is crucial to the success of your campaigns. You need to have flawless product images to entice customers into buying. The only way to do this is by removing background from photos to make them more effective.

Removal.AI uses artificial intelligence technology in removing backgrounds from pictures. Because of this “smart” feature, you no longer have to worry about editing photos yourself. It can handle multiple pictures at one go so you never have to wait for ages to have your product photos ready for upload on your social media pages. Aside from its superb background removal feature, Removal.AI also has a powerful photo editor that you can use to fine-tune photos. This makes it an all-around tool that you can use for any photos that you want to include in your campaigns.

Removal.AI is free to use but you will only get to download high-quality results when you subscribe to a plan. Download full-resolution images for as low as $0.03 per image for monthly subscriptions and as low as $0.19 per image for the lifetime subscription.

  1. Pixelixe.com

For Image Automation From Spreadsheet

Working with thousands of images can be both boring and tiring. The only way to get around this mundane task is by having an image automation tool that will auto-generate graphics in just one click. This would let you save time and money, especially when you are working with multiple graphics across different social media platforms

Pixelixe is a nifty tool that is perfect for image automation from spreadsheets. It can instantly generate a variety of images using CSV files. It is the easiest tool to use for creating perfect graphics for each of your social media profiles as you can personalize the automation according to your current marketing project.

You can start using Pixelixe right away without paying anything but only up to 50 documents. Subscription plans start at $9 to $249 per month. Depending on your plan, you will be able to generate photos for a specific number of documents and have unlimited storage for all of your images.


Takeaway

Social media management can be very beneficial when done correctly. It would result in better social media marketing campaigns that would yield more customers, traffic, and engagement towards your brand.

Since an established social media presence is vital to the success of your business, you are more likely to succeed if you are armed with the best tools to manage your socials. Do not discount the importance of automation tools as they do not only make managing your social media accounts easier. They are key to finishing all the tasks that are to be done for you to improve your business using social media marketing.

Top comments (1)

Collapse
 
zitraks profile image
kslv

Hey! Thank you for your tips! They are very helpful! Also, I don't like to do much with my account if I use it for advertising, so I can turn to professionals in their field, experts in Social Media Accounts