⏳ 5 minute read.
It was National Social Media Managers Day on 17th September 2020. Read more about why it was created here.
My Takeaways from the 5 Social Media Experts
It’s not often that you get to hear insights from five social media experts all in one day. I’ve picked out my key learnings from each of the five videos that resonated with me.
Owen Williams – Siml Social
@OwsWills
“Digital Kudos” – people love to be noticed. You can elevate really positive comments by simply engaging with them. After all, social media shouldn’t be a case of ‘social MEdia’, but more on the quality two-way engagement. Owen emphasised: “If you’re not going to engage with people emotionally on social media, then what the bloody hell are you doing?!”
Perspective – Understanding your audience is key. “If you can’t look through your audience’s eyes, if you can’t associate with what your audience will derive from the content, then you’re doing social wrong.”
Data-led – Being data-led will help win over senior leaders. Analysing social media activity will help tailor what works and what doesn’t. In a nutshell: “just do more of what you do well, all the time!”
May King Tsang – FOMO creator
@MayKingTea
FOMO – (Fear Of Missing Out) – ask yourself the following question: “do you want your organisation to be forgotten about on social media?” There’s always something positive to showcase like featuring people who are doing amazing work in your organisation. Just like ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ – “We (organisations) need to become our own reality show.”
Meaty bits – Organisations often publish ‘before’ and ‘after’ content when it comes to resolving a customer’s issue. However, there is value found in the in-between process – where people can really follow the whole journey of how your organisation solved a particular problem for someone. It fills people with reassurance and adds loyalty to your brand.
Skillset – It’s not about getting a young’un to manage social media for the organisation, in a “you’ll do” kind of way. It requires a certain skillset, intuition and experience. It needs to be learnt, Hel’s courses can bridge that gap.
Alice More O’Ferrall – Global Head of Digital at WWF
@alicemof
Personal vs. Professional social media – Just because someone uses social media in their personal life, doesn’t mean that they can do it professionally. It’s such a shame when it’s just added to their job specification without any training. This can leave people feeling ‘out at sea’.
‘Sanity Metrics’ – this is about measuring quality over the quantity. Sanity metrics and the share of voice measures how people are engaging, such as comments, shares and tagging friends into posts. It involves stepping away from the vanity metrics (likes, followers and fans) and delving deeper into ‘real’ engagements.
Visibility – Social media is where news breaks, where crisis’ happen and where anything on social media can be a headline in the newspapers the following day. There’s a huge pressure on social media teams to stay on top of the speed and accuracy involved with managing a wide variety of social media scenarios.
Engagement – “The absolute key to a social media strategy is engagement.” Listen to your communities and learn from them. Don’t just broadcast out. Facebook Groups for example give people a safe space (away from negative social media users) to engage with like-minded people. Social media managers have a duty of care to those communities through moderation of content.
Alex Duffy – Freelance social media manager
@alexlduffy
Instagram – On visual platforms like Instagram, it’s about showing people what they want to see, or what they thought they didn’t know they wanted to see. Successful content comes down to the element of surprise by being creative and imaginative.
Reactive – There is a certain level of delight experienced from being reactive on social media. Sometimes planning stifles creativity. The spur of the moment social media content feels more real and in the moment and that’s often the magic of social media.
Trolls – Social media being customer facing can often bring out the horrible side of people. Health and Wellbeing services in organisations should help social media managers by ensuring that there’s enough staff to cover so monitoring and engagement is not just on one person. Services should also provide support on how to deal with the impact of online abuse.
Vin Gill – Social Media and PR Specialist
@digitalvingill
And finally, here’s what I spoke about:
My advice – “You are the experts, trust your skills and intuition! We know that all of our decisions are based on data and research, so don’t let other people’s fear sway you from that. Always be learning, have fun and remember why you love and got into social media in the first place.”
Top Fans – The day-to-day community engagement can often be invisible to others in the organisation. It’s so important to be consistent with this as it builds trust and Top Fans who can then share key messages in Facebook Community Groups. People are ‘social animals’ – they love to feel empowered and that’s key in any social media strategy.
Private vs. Public sector – Social media strategy creation in marketing agencies is so different to the risk-averse public sector. The social media manager in the private sector would gather all the research and content and the in-house designers would make it look pretty. In the public sector, you’re wearing ALL of those hats – from research collation, copywriting to design, all with next to zero budget.
Three Things Thursday newsletter – I research brands and deconstruct their social media strategies as part of my own behind-the-scenes research. On the back of this, I have launched a weekly newsletter called ‘Three Things Thursday’ which shares my insights and findings. It also helps me stay accountable and to keep on-top of the latest trends and brands.
Training – It’s amazing to see new social media users flourish and become excited as they learn more. Age really has nothing to do with understanding social media. Introducing Mr Singh, the now 83-year-old family friend I referred to in my video:
@DigitalVinGill 