Social media marketing has never been more important. If your business doesn’t have a social media presence, you will find yourself falling behind your competitors. Social media allows you to reach targeted audiences very quickly, engage with your followers, and market your brand affordably.
Customers are heading to social media to get information about brands, leave reviews, and get special deals. Without a presence, your brand would seem like it is out of step and out of touch.
Luckily, it’s never been easier to be successful on social media, no matter what your working situation is or who is on your staff.
Remote social media management is an effective way to get what you need out into the world. You can have someone working remotely handle it, or hire a virtual social media manager.
Here are some best practices for managing that situation and finding success.
Create a Detailed Content Schedule
Your social media strategy should fit within your broader market strategy, and work in concert with it. As part of that strategy, you need a content calendar to map out when and how you will post on your social media channels throughout the year.
When you have people working remotely, having a very detailed calendar will be a big help to avoid confusion. Make sure that your calendar is detailed, outlining what to post on each type of channel that you have.
This will not just provide a framework for the year, but also give your social media team plenty of time to brainstorm content, get feedback, and get documents and photos from other staff.
Project Management Software
When you have a staff or a contractor working remotely, you need to stay in touch as efficiently as possible. You want to save time and also make sure that everything is clear in terms of what needs to be done.
Having weekly meetings or sending emails back and forth can both take up a lot of everyone’s valuable time and potentially make things confusing.
With a good project management software solution, you can make sure that everyone is in touch on an ongoing basis, and that everyone knows what they need to accomplish.
With project management software, you can delegate tasks, set deadlines, and share content and comments.
With chat features, everyone will be on the same page, and you can quickly and easily provide feedback on matters related to your social media.
It can help to eliminate the need for time-sucking meetings or sending out flurries of emails that can get lost in the shuffle.
Pay for Output, Not Time
Most companies pay by the hour. Even in a business with salaries, they are usually based on an assumed or expected hours or work structure. This can be challenging when you have people working for you off-site.
There is no way of knowing when they are actually working on a project. When workers are in the office, at the very least you know when they are there, and even if they aren’t clacking away at their keyboards you can assume they are thinking about a project or task.
For remote workers, you may not want to deal with timesheets or other ways to track their hours “at work.” It’s not healthy to be distrustful, and there is simply no way of auditing on your end. Instead, think about paying your social media team for what they do.
This can take many forms, including a salary structure, but it removes concerns about hours worked and makes things simple for everyone.
Use a Social Media Dashboard
Along with a content calendar, you should also have a social media dashboard program that tracks all of your social media channels. You can see how content is performing, what’s on tap, comments, likes, shares, and many other metrics related to your social media.
Since a dashboard is in the cloud, you and your remote social media team can have access and use it on a daily basis. You can suggest comment replies, check analytics, and get information in an instant. With a tool like this, everyone will know what’s happening on all of your channels and platforms at all times, with no overlaps and no gaps.
Stay in Touch
When people are working remotely, it can be easy to almost forget about them. You get focused on doing your job and allow them to do theirs.
In some ways, this is a good thing, but you never know if your remote team has questions, needs feedback, or is out of the loop.
Even if you don’t have regular meetings because of robust project management software, make sure that you at least touch base every once in a while to check in.
Working remotely even when it comes to social media, has its challenges. However, by following these best practices you can keep on top of your feeds and find success.
___________________________________________________
Some other articles you might find of interest:
Make your business rock with these business plan writing skills:
Startup’s Guide to Write a Business Plan
Would you like to know how investors value a startup?
How Do Investors Value a Startup?
