Social Media Masterclass
Successful social media efforts require attention to detail. Here’s a plan to help you align your goals with your staff.
By Michelle Scheuermann
Has business grown so much in the past year or so that it is finally time to add to the social media team of “one” to help with the workload? Or perhaps it’s time to add outside help to shoulder areas that have become an intolerable burden to your staff. From managing multiple social media accounts to answering customer inquiries and, of course, creating viral videos in any spare time, how do social media departments best plan to carry this all out? What protocols should be in place? What are other NSSF members doing?
During my NSSF virtual seminar last year, titled “Social Media Masterclass—Social Media as a Team” (now available at nssf.org for NSSF members), I dived into this large, and sometimes overwhelming, topic. The class was part of SHOT University, which NSSF is hosting again at the 2022 SHOT Show. What follows is a synopsis of the class. It can help you negotiate the seemingly infinite shifting sands of the social media landscape.
Budget
When considering the decision to add more members to social media staff, the budget is always the first hurdle. Budget doesn’t always mean financial resources; it often means time resources as well. Is hiring internally an option? Perhaps external help (such as an agency or a consultant) offers more flexibility? Either way, consider all the items needed for proper social media management. This includes (but is not limited to) obtaining quality photos; developing, writing, and posting content; and responding to queries. All of this can be incredibly time consuming. Your particular budget will determine if there’s room to buy photos or if you will require staffers to take quality images with their mobile phones. Budget will also determine if a social media manager’s job includes responding to customer inquiries, which can be a 24/7 job, or if there’s room to employ third-party management software.
Management
Here’s the rub: There really isn’t a single definition of just what a social media manager does; the particular job duties will vary from organization to organization. That said, the biggest mistake I see by management is immediately assuming that younger staffers, many of whom have grown up with social media and use it in their personal lives every day, are the perfect candidates for the position of social media manager. Thinking so is dismissive of the responsibility social media managers shoulder for their businesses on a daily basis. The better approach is to identify those individuals in the organization who already have a passion and propensity for social media and who also demonstrate the maturity to handle this key responsibility.
Typical roles within social media management include: Strategist, who sets the plan and strategy for all social channels; Content Creator, who develops content from written word to photos and videos for each platform; Community Manager, who answers customer’s direct messages and comments on posts and inquiries; Paid Advertiser, a group or individual who handles all paid advertising in Facebook, Google, etc.; and Analyst, the one who digs into analytics and churns out reports to help with key performance indicators.
Let’s review a real-life example of a NSSF member, Nosler, to see an example of what I’m talking about. As director of digital marketing at Nosler, Cheryl Valdez has seen many changes in her seven years of leading the social media accounts for the manufacturer. But she still runs a lean team; it’s just her and one other individual who lends support as needed.
“I manage day-to-day content creation, scheduling, partner collaborations, and community engagement,” she says. “Anyone who manages social for a brand with a large volume of fan interaction knows that unanswered DMs (direct messages) and comments can get out of control quickly if neglected. We view these interactions as an extension of our customer service efforts, so we’ve made it a priority to stay on top of these as best as we can. In keeping with this goal, we have a marketing team member who serves as an extra set of fingers for responding to messages and comments from our fans.”
Setting Social Media Goals
Next, it is up to the business owner or department head to determine the goals the social media department need to meet. A few options here include increasing brand awareness, increasing traffic to a website, lead generation (to obtain more emails), or increasing engagement and impressions. Social media can also be used as a hiring tool, for social listening and customer engagement, and for public relations efforts (disseminating news).
One big misconception is for owners to simply say, “I want more likes,” as this really isn’t a key performance indicator (KPI) that necessarily leads to sales. I like to call likes on a page or post “vanity metrics” that only make bosses feel good (temporarily) when they see their brand increase in likes.
What is most important is that everyone on the team is on the same page. You all agree what your goals are for this quarter, or this year, and you are all striving to find ways to meet or exceed those goals.
Valdez agrees and says Nosler places more emphasis on content engagement over anything else. “Our philosophy has always posed the question: If someone were to land on the Nosler Instagram or Facebook page for the first time, would the first post they see be something that gets them to engage and hit the follow button? Our goal is to inspire maximum engagement, fan acquisition, and retention. While some brands focus on audience size as a primary goal, we tend to pay less attention to this number. We know that with great content, our audience will grow organically over time. Having millions of followers with mediocre content engagement isn’t our focus.”
At Nosler, Valdez says the team has agreed their social voice is conversational. “Our fans are our family, and we aren’t interested in having robotic, corporate-sounding conversations with them. At the end of the day, we’re all real people behind the screen and we try to be as real with our community as we can.”
Breaking Down a Social Media Playbook
- A List of all Company/Brand Social Media Channels
- Best Practices. Spell out tone of voice, style guide, use of logos, and even the use of emojis in social posts and when responding to customers.
- Roles, Responsibilities and Expectations. These three key areas need to be clearly defined for each social media manager involved with the channels.
- How often do you communicate as a team? Huddle every morning? A weekly sit-down meeting?
- b. What do you use to communicate and manage projects? Trello, Basecamp, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, etc.
- Escalation and Crisis Management.
- Response Protocol. This establishes acceptable length of time to answer customer questions/complaints, how to react to them, tone of voice, how to take it off-line for a private conversation, and when it is necessary to escalate to upper management for support.
- Crisis Management. If a post or comment becomes viral (positive or negative), how it is handled?
- Reporting. Who does it, what format is it in, how often is it compiled, and how it is delivered.
- Customer Service. Who does it. Include examples of how to answer typical customer questions. This is a good area to offer responses to typical customer questions.
- Appendices. If needed.
Determining Processes and Guidelines
Every business should have a “Social Media Playbook,” which is a guide that walks through all the accounts the business holds, their respective passwords, Admins/managers who have access to the sites, and expectations of each. This playbook can show post cadence and tone of voice when dealing with customer queries. In addition, the playbook speaks to third-party apps that are approved by the business for use on the account, whether free or paid versions, and logins for those tools as well.
The playbook also should cover processes and procedures for day-to-day activities. For example, how long should a customer comment sit on a post before receiving a response? And when a response is given, how should it be handled? To me, the best part of a playbook is how it can double as a training guide for new hires or when someone is out on leave. You can hand the new employee this guide and have them dig into it. This playbook will save you and your business wasted time, energy, and—let’s face it—very public errors.
Companies that have created successful social media efforts have learned that it requires a complete commitment from the top down. Half-hearted efforts are seen for what they are and are commonly dismissed with snarky online comments. You need to go all in.
