We understand what it’s like as a small team – you can get by without a social media management tool, but you can also save valuable time and increase effectiveness and productivity by using one.
So, we interviewed a handful of our small team customers to understand some of their top motivations and benefits of using a social media management platform like SoCrowd.
One thing which also stood out is how teams want to communicate via social; two-way engagement, personalised interactions and lifetime-relationships are what today’s teams aspire to deliver for their customers or community, but in a safe and coordinated way.
Save time planning and posting content
Sometimes, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. This is especially true for smaller teams who are tasked to handle social media and spin a lot of other plates at the same time. It can be difficult to set time aside for posting everyday.
A social media scheduling tool can save massive amounts of time allowing teams to plan daily, weekly or even monthly content at a time that suits them, keeping their feeds full of relevant content.
Busy teams can also struggle to get into a creative frame of mind. Features such as SoCrowd’s Content Cal give you visibility of what interesting national days and events are coming up.
For small teams handling large amounts of social media posts, bulk uploading of planned posts also saves a huge amount of time.
Tip – If you are not currently using awareness days then you might be missing an easy way to engage and a great source of ideas.
Stay on top of comments, mentions and messages
Making the most of any opportunity to engage online audiences or community should be high on any team’s agenda. A missed message or comment can result in a poor customer experience, a disengaged follower, or even reputation damage.
Seeing and responding to any comments, mentions and messages from all your social media accounts in one place saves time when engaging, replying, or assigning to colleagues.
Teams handling social media customer service also benefit from efficiencies with visibility over all inbound activity, what has and hasn’t been dealt with, and which member of the team is dealing with each item. Social media management platforms such as SoCrowd can provide you with this visibility and ensure that nothing gets missed.
Tip – Unless you already have a fool-proof process ensuring you never miss a mention or message, consider how you could put a better structure in place with a management tool.
Prove the value of social media
Your leadership team may already be bought into the power of social media, or may still need a little more convincing – analytics can help prove the real value of social media.
Vanity metrics such as Likes and Followers are fine but don’t stop there. Senior leaders respond to metrics that help show progress towards corporate objectives, show new opportunities or where efficiencies and improvements can be found.
Social media analytics provide your team with these metrics in an easy to consume and share format, saving you time on analysing the data, and helping you highlight the outcomes you achieve.
Tip – Don’t be afraid to share the successes of your social media efforts and show the tangible impact that it has on the organisation.
Ensure social media accounts are safe and secure
We all know that sharing usernames and passwords is not an ideal setup, and comes with an element of risk. With a number of people having access to the same social media accounts, posting and responding to conversations, it is important to know who created which posts and responded to which customers.
A social media management platform can keep the usernames and passwords of the individual accounts safe and secure whilst still being able to provide employee access, and at the same time record a full activity trail for each account.
Tip – Ask your IT or Operations team if they are comfortable sharing usernames and passwords. If they are not, then you will have their support.
Scale up when you have time on your side
Small teams often look for social media management software when volumes of both inbound and outbound content start increasing. Social media is only growing in importance as a comms channel, so it could be sooner than you expect.
Social media can be a complex role, especially if you are doing it for the first time or figuring it out as you go. Luckily our team at SoCrowd have helped hundreds of teams just like yours, and are here to support you at every step of your social media journey.
Our social media software can be set up within minutes to fit you and your team, but there are a handful of other elements that you might want to think about at the same time;
- Have a social media strategy in place
- Train your team on social media and the software
- Communicate the role of social media to other teams in the organisation
- Assign roles and responsibilities to each member of the social media team
Tip – It can be more difficult to implement a piece of software when the volumes are increasing and you are trying to recruit and onboard new team members.
If you have any questions or want to find out more then engage with us @SoCrowd!
