Social Media Management For Local Business

With many businesses falling prey to the claws of the recession on a daily basis, it is more vital than ever for brands to maximise sales what ever way they can. If you manage a company you will know that the more you market your product, the higher your profit margin will be. However, the online era has completely revolutionised the way that your consumers are spending their free time. If you can’t become accustomed to this change, then you will undoubtedly end up surrendering your business to the credit crunch.

Advertising in the yellow pages and newspapers has become the old way for brands to advertise, with many companies now marketing their product online. The majority of the western population uses a computer on a daily basis, with a significant amount of this time spent on social networking sites. In order to take your company forward you will have to adapt to this fact, and utilise social media as the new way to promote your brand. To exploit social media successfully, many of the bigger companies in the retail world have hired social media managers to help improve the efficiency of their online presence. This is something you should definitely take note of.

A social media manager can perform a variety of tasks for you. Their knowledge of the online world can help in guiding your company in the right direction. But what do they actually do? Below I have compiled some of the key services that you could expect to receive from your social media manager:

Spam Clearing: It is not unusual for your twitter & facebook’s message system to become full up with spam. Well you may have noticed that your business account is also full of these sorts of messages. Without consistent monitoring and clearing it will be hard for you to filter out the private messages that are relevant and vital to your business. A social media manager can keep on top of this for you.

Reputation Management: Your company image is extremely important, so you need someone who can monitor your reputation online. A social media manager can do this by approving comments, and by creating social relationships with your companies target market. Your manager will offer help to these people, and use them as influencers to help create a following for your brand.

Content distribution: Your manager will also distribute any blogs, videos or information you release online, to a variety of places. With just one post at one time, your blog will reach the eyes of very few consumers. A social media manager can ensure the visibility of your company information by interlinking multiple social media sites together to find and maximise the attention of your clients and customers.

A business can be stressful to run at the best of times, and so you just don’t have the time to perform these seemingly tedious, yet vital tasks.  A social media manager can act as your executive assistant, saving you time, and bringing a real life personality to your business. With a social media manager you can abolish the need for any automated robots!

It’s not easy trying to keep up with the technological age, but its something that you simply have to do. The hiring of a social media manager can fill that link between your company and the online world, ensuring that your brand is up-to-date with the social media movement. Rethink the way you market your product otherwise you risk being left behind in the new age of social media marketing.

Before the internet the industrial media could have complete control over the influences that were cast upon the  general public. Despite our nation having the right to freedom of speech, many people found it hard to express their beliefs, and to get their opinions heard. Only those in executive chairs had the power to entertain, motivate, and influence people. But the online age has truly changed all of that.

Social media is media that has been produced by publishing techniques that are available to perform by anybody without the need for qualification. It has essentially turned content consumers into content producers allowing non-professionals to play a part in the media world. Although social media is extremely diverse, some of its main aspects include the use of sites such as YouTube and Twitter who allow users to generate a subscribed following. This shows that there isn’t necessarily a need for a professional production company or advertising scheme to ensure your work reaches a global audience. The market of advertising is now heavily influenced by social media because of this.

Some of the reasons for social media’s success lies within the way feedback can be left for material. In many online formats comments and ratings can be left on someone’s work, meaning the producer can make practical changes to improve their material. Notably some of the biggest companies have been attracted by this setup, displaying their work on socially active sites. Social media can offer some of the biggest brands in the world the instant feedback that they are so very desperate for.

So how can you get involved in the social media movement? Well there are a variety of ways but I have compiled some of the easiest ones below:

Blogging – Writing a blog can be a very therapeutic activity. It allows the writer to share his feelings and opinions through a written passage. Blogging can also be hugely rewarding when you consider the size of the following you could potentially generate. There are many websites that allow you to host your blogs for free.

Youtubing – Whether you want to create professional looking videos or just vlog your viewers through your day, YouTube can be a great way for you to express yourself. YouTube boasts an enormous amount of traffic meaning your material has every chance of going viral. It also plays host to an incredible community allowing you to meet new people and understand different cultures.

Social networking – You are probably already active on a site like Facebook or Twitter, but are you getting the most out of it? They can be a great place for hosting your opinions and beliefs. Social networking can also keep you up-to-date with your family and friends making them a perfect platform for you to keep in touch with those you care about.

The future looks bright for social media. With a significant percentage of our time spent socially interacting online, businesses have started to catch on, adapting to meet the needs of a new age. Brace yourselves – social media has only just got started.

By tommy lee on June 11, 2010

While jobs are disappearing, literally to never return, new and never before heard of jobs sprout-up as a result of world wide web social media.

Well, what can I say, SearchAmelia has predicted on many occasions that the third industrial revolution and its major shift in how it will “create” new jobs is materializing in some of the most amazing ways.

During our semi regular bi-weekly free social workshops we have been hammering on the importance of social media and its networking capabilities for small and medium sized businesses in local and regional markets.

Lo and behold, the job market has a need for a new breed of knowledge. A job that can be done part time and most importantly: from your home office.

The sheer explosion of social media from Facebook business, to Twitter business and FourSquare, Ning and LinkedIn has been coming down the pipeline at such a speed that most small and medium sized businesses are “caught by surprise” as a total new job market segment has been created simply forced out of need to stay ahead of the business curve:

The Social Media Manager

Many small and midsized business entrepreneurs, as witnessed in our workshops, do simply not have the time to learn how to build, manage and profile themselves in the Social Media circus. And a circus it is but… unfortunately not getting involved means “Not Mattering Anymore” and you WILL loose out and could face extinction because your competitors are either more internet savvy or understand the importance of engaging with customers on social media.

Just as a refresher for some and an eye opener for others, Facebook today is the third largest country (if it where a country) in population with a little under 500 million users, responsible for over 40 billion sign-ins per month and well over 500 billion human interactions. Twitter is a distant second, but is gaining momentum regarding interaction and messages send and ranks now as the 6th largest, traffic wise, website in the world while youTube, not strictly a Social Medium, is adding 25 hours of video per minute, 24 hours a day, as people and businesses getting into high gear of personal branding.

Foursquare, Flickr (yes even them), Google Buzz are gaining traction in the circus and with more than 220,000 iPhone apps of which a good 20% are geared towards social media, as well as the development of social Android apps, the forest is growing into a jungle where trees are becoming more difficult to uniquely identify.

Social Media wild growth

What tools to chose? Which networks to follow? How much time is needed to maintain the social media status? How to push the products and services in the social marketplace? All good questions and this is where the Social Media Manager Job description and thus services come into play.

The job has grown exponentially in the last several months and consequently demand and job open positions is staggering. One small Job market website alone has over 17,000 Social Media Manager job openings listed.

A very recent survey shows that 91.5% of all small and medium sized businesses are considering a Social Media Manager while 85% who already have a social media manager have seen more than abnormal growth.

These are staggering numbers if one realizes that there are over 30 million small businesses in the US alone. Many small businesses share a Social Media Manager and consultancy fees totaling $10,000 per month for a manager are not abnormal.

Even if one considers that only one in 50 small businesses considers a Social Media Manager to take care of their social media needs, this would mean that 600,000 companies would be in a need to hire about 200,000 Managers in the next 3-6 months.

How serious is a Social Media Manager Job?

Let me put it this way… Marketing 101 book page one says: “What you don’t know you cannot crave for!” A fundamental mistake many businesses in pre-internet and Internet era make and are still making.

It doesn’t seem to sink in that you can be the most talented craftsman, the most accomplished accountant, the most knowledgeable realtor, or have the best merchandise at the lowest rates… if people don’t know about you or your business, you may as well hang a sign up on the door that states: “Opened my door for business yesterday, closed my door for business today!” And the sad notion is that all moneys went in preparation of the offices, tools of the craft and resources, yet nothing was reserved for creating awareness, personal or business.

Also unfortunate is that many people, not only entrepreneurs, think that the Internet is still a playground for teens, the internet is a waste of time and it is only for kids. They support their wisdom with excesses such as Farmville and teens pulling out their Playstation and Nintendo games and thus justify their business inactivity on the internet based on a fraction of what the World Wide Web has to offer.

Oh, sure they have an “Online Brochure”, yet many of them don’t know even their website URL (website address name).

As a result of this ignorance or being afraid of this global phenomenon, many business owners are hiding behind the “I’m too old to learn” and simply ignore that their customers are no longer reading newspapers or magazines, do not watch TV nor listen to the Radio but instead spend their time on a laptop.

If they would then they would know that their customers read blogs, read newspapers online, watch TV via youTube, Vimeo, Hulu and Dailymotion, search the gossip sites for the latest on stars and starlets, play a game here or there, do some Google or Bing searching on their hobbies, roam the online radio stations … and interact with family, friends, colleagues and engage with complete strangers via Facebook, Twitter and other niche market social outlets. Let’s face it, your customers and potential customers are online. But don’t believe me. Just be aware of the 500 million Facebook users.

So how serious is a Social Media Manager’s job? Until the next evolution of the internet is kicking into high gear and you don’t “have the time” or are “too old to learn” you’d better decide to hire a Social Media Manager, if you aspire wealth, health and visibility.

What does the Job entail?

Quite frankly, it is a very intense job that requires to stay up-to-date on the latest developments, tools and trends in the social media sphere. It requires next to social skills, writing skills and intimate knowledge of the business he/she represents, an undying drive to learn each and every intricacy of the social network tools. It requires adaptability to new circumstances, research and ongoing communication. An almost constant and never ending learning process awaits those that want to be successful in the Social Media Sphere.

To learn more about Social Media Manager, SearchAmelia.com will be hosting on Monday June 29 from 6-8 pm a special Social Media Management Workshop (RSVP required) at a suitable location based on the amount of attendance. We suggest to bring a Laptop with wireless access.

Bottom Line

Social Media is not a Fad, but a very serious business tool that may require some very special attention based on your enterprise.

From SearchAmelia.Com