Managing your social media presence

In this article we are going to look at the importance of managing your social media presence and how you can do it effectively.

An important part of social media management is to oversee the social media strategy of a business. This involves conducting research on the target audience and interacting with them by responding to their messages, thoughts and comments in a timely manner, to scheduling content on the most suitable social networks and monitoring performance.

It’s essential to make sure that you are voicing your company’s brand and values well through social media. You will also need to be very familiar with all the different social media networks out there, the ins and outs of each of the platforms, including the constantly developing algorithms and be able to adapt to change quickly.

As part of your social media strategy, a few of the most important things to consider are the social media channels you are using, and how often you should post on these channels to ensure a consistent online presence. Consider that all the different networks have different post rates that work for them. For example, if you are posting a lengthy thought leadership post on LinkedIn that is more than 1,000 words, this will often require time to read. So, you don’t want to post more than a few times a week. But if you look at platforms like TikTok, the more regularly you post, the more likely you are to reach a broader range of people. It’s recommended that you consistently post multiple times a day to stay relevant.

Similarly, for other networks such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you will want to post multiple times per week, or even per day. The reason is that people check these networks multiple times per day. The more of your content they see, the more likely they will interact with it.

The next action to consider as part of your management plan is to analyse the trends and patterns that will help you define your social media strategy both short term and long term!

• Look at how your audience are interacting with your content. Are people commenting more on certain posts?
• Are people liking other posts more?
• Are people sharing particular formats like videos more than others?

We will cover this more in Week 2 as part of the performance measurement lessons.

Which ways have you seen your favourite social media brands manage their presence online? Put your comments below.