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Four Social Media Marketer Must-Haves

When you're ready to hire your next social media professional, scrutinize him or her with the same diligence you would your tax preparer, your accountant or your HR team. Social media marketers need business acumen and diligence. Social media, done well, can make a real difference in your business. It's time to expect more, regardless of your business size. 



The Four Social Media Marketer Must-Haves

Analysis

What are you getting for your hard-earned marketing dollars? Your social media marketer should send you monthly or quarterly reports analyzing your growth and progress on all fronts. Is growth showing? If not, why not? And, what is the solution?

Hootsuite recently released an update with fantastic analytics and dashboards for free in the free service, and every platform has available analytics. There is no excuse for a lack of meaningful metrics and intelligence in your social media marketing. 

Caveat: Not every post will be viral, or even successful, but the end of the month should see growth from the collection of posts, follows and comments. 

Marketing Mind

Is your social media marketer posting iPhone pics and calling it a day? He or she can do better. 

There are many tools available to make your posts look better and more professional, from PicMonkey and Canva to Adobe Spark. (Peg Fitzpatrick has amazing tutorials on how to make every image and video better.) In days past, Illustrator used to be a requirement for photo art, and it required an expensive tool kit and training. Those days are past. Most design tools are free, and most are set up to be WYSIWYG. 

Your logo should be on most posts, along with your brand colors. The collection of images should build your brand, because social media marketing is marketing. 


Calendaring

What's the plan? While some social media should be spontaneous, there should also be a calendar for the next 30 days that promote your business. Less stress, more business: calendaring is crucial. 

The calendar doesn't need to be complicated--an Excel calendar with a post and the social media channels that post will go to is a great start. If you're more advanced or coordinating more people, a tool like Basecamp or Asana will help you keep everything organized and makes editing and approval simple. 

Ideally, businesses should have a overarching plan for the year, but sometimes that's a lot to ask in the beginning, or even the first year. (Facebook Armageddon change anyone else's plans?) However, monthly is a reasonable expectation and crucial to making social media an ongoing project that consistently promotes your business. 

Open Hands


You, as the business owner, should have access to every tool your social media marketer is using, and he or she should set up brand specific accounts for you to use in Canva, Pic Monkey, Hootsuite, etc. A pro knows how to deliver value, and he or she should make your life easier. However, if you choose to take over the social media, you should know how and have access to every single thing used for your business. 

Do not hire a social media marketer who won't take you behind the scenes. You're likely dealing with the Great Oz--all smoke and mirrors and no substance. 

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