20/01/2022
Dear brand owners: social media is free. Right?
Sure, anyone can create a Facebook account. You want an Instagram? Just sign up! Slap your brand on and you have yourself an online presence.
Now, put up a post. "Sure! I got an ad I paid someone to create for a newspaper, I'll send that up the newsfeed thing. People gonna love it."
"Hmm. No one's responding. Why? Let's put more of those ads. It's free anyway."
"Why isn't anyone that's not my mother following my brand? I sell the most interesting products in the world."
20 posts later, "Hey, this is hard work, with so little ROI. Why do my competitors make it look so easy?"
Six months later, "I haven't had the time to do anything on social since I set it up. Now it's dormant and rotting and my following is still a joke."
Then: "S**t, I posted something out of frustration and now that's gone viral. I took the post down but someone took a screenshot and it's spreading across all the news sites! People hate my company now."
"I need help."
***
A social media manager can help. But you know, he doesn't—and shouldn't—work alone.
You'll also need a content creation team: a copywriter, a designer, a video producer. Someone has to make sure you don't say the wrong thing either. Oh, don't forget the analyst that can monitor your content performance and advise you that your product promotion posts don't work unless you pay to run them as boosted content, or you need to understand what your intended audience wants to see from you because what you think is interesting really isn't. Also, there's also the social.media strategist that will formulate a full-year approach and plan to get you what you need on social, not necessarily what you want. And you need a social media head to tell you all of this in a way that you will understand and accept.
All this isn't easy. And it isn't free.
