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7 Reasons to Outsource Your Social Media Marketing

    1. Social media people know what they’re doing! An outside agency is (supposed to be) staffed with people who are experts in their fields and have degrees as well as outside experience in social media management. They will find quality content to post across your social media platforms and be able to engage with your followers. If you contrast this with just having a member of your staff manage your social media, the difference is palpable. Not only will your employee be juggling the added social media responsibilities with his existing job, but he likely doesn’t have a very good idea of the job he’s supposed to be doing. Your existing employees are not experts and their work will reflect that.
    2. Hiring an outside agency is often very cost effective. If you were to hire a social media manager onto your staff, you will have to prepare yourself to pay them about $50,400 a year according to PayScale. Now for a little more math. Everyone knows that taking on a new employee comes with more costs than just their annual salary. We used the Real Employee Cost Calculator to estimate how much an employee paid at $24/hour for an annual salary of $50,400 would actually cost a company. The calculator factors in the employee’s insurance, annual bonus, payroll taxes and various infrastructure costs. For our example, it calculates the real cost of your new social media manager to be closer to $100,000. Hiring a consultant at the same hourly rate costs about 60% of  that.
    3. Less mistakes are made. Mistakes are more likely to happen with both other options we have mentioned (giving social media responsibilities to an existing employee or hiring someone new onto your staff). Why? Outside agencies have a series of checks and balances that EVERY SINGLE ONE of your posts goes through. At least two sets of eyeballs should be checking every post for accuracy, grammar, spelling, and common sense. Can your brand afford any mistakes?
    4. Social media matters. At this point you may be thinking: “Why do I have to pick any of these options? I don’t think I even need social media.” In almost every case, you would be wrong. The cost of ignoring social media is tangible. According to a report from the Pew Research Center, nearly 70% of American adults use social networking sites. Additionally, many reports have found that around 74% of consumers rely on social media to influence their purchasing decisions. Social media is not going away, and businesses that do not embrace its power will likely fall to the wayside.
    5. Your social media presence will stay active. While daily social media updates may become low on the priority list for an existing employee (or even a social media manager if they have a lot of other things going on), it will never be neglected by an outside agency whose sole job is up keeping up on it. Daily updates will let your customers know that your business is active and keep them up to date on real time happenings like promotions or events.
    6. Posts will consistently go out at optimal times. Things can get hectic in an office and social media posting can be pushed to the back burner. But an agency will schedule and plan around optimal social media posting times so that they can engage with your followers during the best times!
    7. Analytics reports allow agencies to adapt. Most (good) agencies will track analytics across your social media platforms and constantly adjust and rework your social media strategy so that it is as effective as possible. This type of calculated planning means that resources are used on strategies that work. Rather than hoping a certain strategy will pay off, agencies track success of campaigns and use analytics to gauge whether a campaign is successful, saving time and money.

In short—outsourcing your social media can benefit your budget and your customers. Keeping a strong online presence is key, and social media managers will ensure that your brand and your voice are portrayed in meaningful ways. And before you go Google “best social media managers,” save your time and check us out! Here at Buzzly Media we specialize in analytics-driven social media strategies and we would love to create a customized one for your business.

 

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6 Social Media Mistakes You Might be Making

Social media is an alluring way for businesses to advertise, but it also comes with many pitfalls that you may not expect to encounter. Each platform has its own preferences for post types, image sizes and even search optimization. Without a pretty good grasp on the intricacies of each platform, you may be making these mistakes and making your brand look less professional and even a bit silly.

Screenshot of Digiorno's tweet reading: "A million apologies. Did not read what the hashtag was about before posting."

An embarrassing (and easily avoidable) mistake made by a big brand on social media.

  1. Rushed posting. One of our cringiest pet peeves is when it’s obvious that a page has posted something that was not looked over or thought out. You can end up with typos, inappropriate hashtag use or just messy-looking posts. Make it a rule that at least one other person looks over a post before it goes live, you can save yourself a lot of grief over little mistakes. Similarly, you also always want to check what trending hashtags relate to before using them in your own messaging. You don’t want to wind up with a debacle like DiGiorno’s mistake in 2014 where they used a trending hashtag relating to domestic violence to advertise their pizza. One tweet may not seem like a big deal, but if you make a mistake it can turn into bad news for your brand.

    Graphic reading: The 2017 SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGE SIZES CHEAT SHEET

    Please refer to this when you are sizing images for social media!

  2.  Incorrect formatting. Take advantage of the plethora of social media cheat sheets for image sizing. If you’ve sized a cover photo for Pinterest you’ll have to change it around for Facebook so it fits. Similarly, a long vertical picture will work great on Pinterest but looks bad on Twitter. Just keep in mind what works best for the different platforms so that your posts are as visually appealing as possible.
  3. Inconsistent voice. We frequently see pages that just allow all their employees to have access to their social media accounts and post whenever and whatever they like. While this is a nice thought, it leads to a distractingly inconsistent voice and tone across your posts and makes you look pretty unprofessional. You don’t want to give your followers whiplash from all the different types of posts going up on your pages. Try to stick to one voice, one tone and one theme across posts. This can be achieved by having only one person in charge of the account or by hiring professionals like us to manage it for you!

    Graphic reading: "We are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you'll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you'll remember 65%."

    Everything you post on social media should include a visual.

  4. No visuals. If there’s anything worse than formatting images incorrectly, it’s not even having visuals in the first place. Text-only posts are boring. Facebook has tried to spice them up a bit by making short text posts bigger but the 35 character limit is usually just too short for you to get much across. If you must make a text-only post, consider adding a background to make it stand out. The only weapons left to get people’s attention are visuals. Video is taking over and posting relevant video content will always perform better. But if you don’t have a video to go with your post then at least find a license-free picture somewhere to make your post pretty! 51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI. Get ahead of the curve!
  5. Platform misuse. Pinning 50 different things to a Pinterest board every day is totally acceptable. But sharing 50 different things to your Facebook page is going to make you (and your brand!) look a little crazy. Similarly, you should absolutely be hashtagging your posts on Twitter and Instagram. But for Facebook and LinkedIn this practice is pretty much useless and it makes you look like a novice if you’re using them. LinkedIn won’t even acknowledge your hashtags and Facebook will make it look like it’s using them (they turn blue) but Facebook posts without a hashtag fare better than those with a hashtag. It’s true. Learn about your platforms before posting anything.

    Graphic of the top 10 hashtags related to dogs. Screenshot generated by Hashtagify.

    Some quick investigation into relevant hashtags can make it much easier for a search engine to find your content!

  6. Disregard of search engine optimization (SEO). To piggyback off of platform misuse, we have to talk about disregarding SEO. Social media is a treasure trove of SEO. You should be researching what keywords and phrases people are using for your brand and paying attention to high-performing hashtags you can use. There are great tools for doing this, Keyhole can give you a good idea of good hashtags to use and even Hashtagify. You should save room in your tweets for at least two to three hashtags and put up to 30 hashtags at the end of your Instagram posts. Even Pinterest is hashtag-friendly! If you’re trying to reach the biggest audience possible you need to take the steps to help search engines find your content.

 

So there you have it. A basic overview of six mistakes you might be making on social media along with some ideas on how to fix them. If you’re still struggling with getting a handle on the intricacies of social media marketing, we offer training and comprehensive social media packages. Send us an email at info@buzzlymedia.com if you’re ready to hand over the responsibility to the experts.

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