001 - Do you need to hire a social media marketer/manager?

Is it worth hiring a social media or digital marketing manager?

"All they need to do is post a few posts a week - the same for all platforms - with some copy and engage with the comments and ensure that those posts accumulate a multitude of new followers and clients".

E Voilá!

It‘s not that hard ??

Well, actually, this is exactly why it‘s so hard to hire any social media managers or digital marketing managers within a company.

Who wants to work for an employee who thinks that the job they‘re hiring them for, requires nothing special and that any dummy can do it?

As a leading strategist in Humanized Marketing? and all things Communication, Consumer Psychology/Behaviour, and Marketing for over 30 years, I have researched the evolution of Marketing, especially how the different roles within Marketing have amalgamted.

It's important to note that just because the words social media appears in the job title, it's not just about social media. Prior to the vocation of Social Media Management/Marketer (SMM), there were Marketing positions such as:

- account manager

- marketing manager

- pr manager

- copywriter

- strategist

- creative director

- data analyst

- designer

Today, an SMM as a vocation amalgamates pretty much ALL of the above vocations (!!).

And yet, many companies look at SMM as something that can be done in a few hours by just throwing out a few posts or videos to attract attention for minimum wage and absurd expectations.

EXCELLENT social media and digital marketing managers need to be both strategic AND creative to be able to create content for businesses to not only create brand awareness but build know-like trust (K-L-T) with an online community. Bearing in mind that the online community has the lowest form of loyalty to brands because of the array of competition due to price-dumping, dropshipping, a saturation of brands, and more, which makes the task of K-L-T harder.

Being able to create content that is disruptive to the norm to stand out and draw in clients with authenticity, vulnerability, and trust, without physically meeting someone IRL, isn‘t a feat for someone that is seen as a side hustle vocation, who posts a few times a week.

This vocation explores adventure, spontaneity, psychology, strategy, and big visions. It requires the manager to be on social media daily, discerning between a business and private life that doesn't always revolve around social media that is switched on 24/7.

So should you currently be someone who is seeking to hire an online marketing team member, be sure to acknowledge that this position is more than just three words on a disruptive platform, but an amalgamation of many professions. Which I am sure, you haven't seen in (m)any other markets? Ever seen a doctor juggling being able to be an assistant, CRM, online educational creator, lecturer, and more? Uh-no.

What is the ROI of hiring an SMM?

In Marketing, there are three pillars that always need to be aligned to ensure that your strategy is working, including

a. People (is your audience and market targeted),

b. Product and/or Service (are you delivering the results for your audience) and

c. Mindset (are you aligned with your brand and business to deliver the content to attract your audience and keep their attention).

SMM similarly, needs to show how social returns connect to the bigger picture. That means

a. Strategy (vision of the brand/business)

b. Audience & Market (Do you know this inside-out and is your content creation aligned to the media behaviour of your audience?) and

c. Tools (have you integrated the customised tools to achieve a & b?).

Measuring social media ROI matters because it’s critical to building and refining your?social media marketing strategy. It shows you what’s working and what’s not—allowing you to shift resources and tactics to be more effective. Also, many companies invest in hiring an online marketing team to include social media management but don't measure the ROI of it.

Here’s a simple formula for how to calculate ROI for social media:

(Value achieved – investment made) / investment made X 100 = social media ROI

The formula above uses value, rather than revenue or profit, as the starting point. For example,?engagement is the most common metric?(36%) content executives use to measure content performance. Conversions, at 17%, are the fourth-most-common metric.

Clear social media objectives help define how social actions align with business and departmental goals.

Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing without these goals?

Theoretically, you could, but real social ROI meaning is only achieved when you show how social returns connect to the bigger picture.

This requires TIME i.e. not a three-month spree but rather a long-term timeframe to strategize and evaluate. Markets and audiences are constantly evolving. A strategy created today will most likely need to be adopted within three months and adjusted (or altered).

What usually happens, however, is that SMM are evaluated within three months or less, and should they not have brought in revenue immediately (which tends to be the criteria for ROI), their efforts are considered a failure and are subsequently let off.

The terminology around SMM as a vocation is familiar however, it's relatively misunderstood in companies to what it entails. Considering the fact that there are numerous options, deciding which social media marketing services you need for the best ROI can be a bit challenging. A very experienced social media marketer may also be the right person who can tell you which steps you need to take for the biggest impact on your company. I assist with building bridges between all departments and the SMM to ensure that not only is positive ROI achieved but that the company doesn't have a high turn-over rate with SMM's by understanding their role and vocation, in addition to offering such services through BrandSashka.

In today's marketing world, it's imperative that each company, whether SME or large corporations, hire excellent SMM's for effective and humanized marketing? to build bridges between the organisation and their evolving audience and markets. These are people we are dealing with, and people buy from people.

To conclude: As an SME, or a large corporation. It is definitely worth hiring an SMM. For SME's this position assists in building your brand and business over the long term, but it is advisable to hire an SMM who is both strategic and creative and who can assist with your marketing long-term strategies. For larger companies, it's important to see an SMM as a key to the marketing team and not just a side-hustle. And to ensure for both areas, that the SMM has really good qualifications and understanding of the amalgamation of all the different professions within marketing to ensure that your ROI is indeed achieved.

Share what has your experience been so far in hiring SMM's?