If 2020 has shown us nothing else, it has left even the loudest last bastion of nay-sayers healthy respect for the strength of social media.
Social media is as powerful as it is dynamic, and platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have shown us that this is the most influential behemoth out there affecting public and consumer opinion, sometimes radically. That being said, while managing your social media well is dollars in your pocket, poor management can mean company-wide disaster. More and more CEOs and business owners have made the decision to leave their digital presence in the hands of studied professionals.
Here are some of the big reasons why we believe that what we do well brings immense value to our clients.
The landscape of social media is a vast and complicated one that changes quickly. Keeping up with this ever-evolving world requires a special kind of focus, and while about three-quarters of Americans use social media daily, calling them experts is like announcing to the world that you are a furniture maker after a successful IKEA assembly.
Hiring a professional here saves our clients time that they should be spending furthering their own company’s goals in ways that they are an actual expert of.
You might not know it if you aren’t in our industry, but the search for content is one of the most challenging aspects of our jobs. From the graphic side of it, keeping things visually fresh and still maintaining brand consistency is already hard enough without falling into the black hole that is finding the right image. If I could somehow get those hours back I could have learned another language by now.
In the 90s we flipped through channels for ages until we found something that held our interest. Now, we scroll through social media in the exact same way.
The most engaging online communications come from creative, thoughtful posting. In our overstimulated world, our attention passes over things that are similar, as we look for something new.
Here are some places I draw inspiration from.
Finding a visual language for your company takes a lot of time and work. In some processes, we research, convene to discuss ideas and limitations, talk about some online persona’s cats, then begin making systems and visual templates. Then comes the tweak-tweak-tweaking until we release this little creation to the client knowing that it will need to evolve constantly but satisfied that it has a good starting place.
Are you looking for the sort of cheeky but still authentic brand tone, or do you swing more toward a Ron Swanson no-frills style of communication? Will your clients see you as stately and established or full of youthful exuberance?
There’s no way around this one and it might be the most important reason to outsource. These days, there is so much more to social media than typing up a cute phrase or two and posting a picture of something-or-other.
Platforms like Facebook and Instagram in their inception (sometimes it’s hard to believe that they weren’t there the whole time) developed as fun ways to share moments with friends is nothing like the data collecting behemoths we work with today.
If a social media program does not follow a clear strategy, have a realistic goal, and measure its own performance in a meaningful way, then it is not being used to its full potential. There is so much data out there that using it is the only way to keep up with the competition in social media marketing.