Hiring a social media practitioner

Cebu is lucky to have a good and talented pool of social media practitioners or professionals (SMPs) who can help businesses find their place in this part of the internet. And if you're one of them, it's best that you understand the nature of the campaign and the amount of investment that you must put not only in terms of their professional fees but also your willingness to spend social media advertising.

One crucial thing that you should remember is that social media campaign does not guarantee you sales let alone guarantee you good leads. When I said previously that you should hire an SMP with a good and proven history of performance, I really mean it that you should and must demand a demonstration of the sites or pages that he/she manages with their corresponding intel or page analytics.

The reason being is that, while we do have very good SMPs around, you cannot tell which of them is the right guy for you. Those analytics do not only provide you an idea of how well an SMP knows about his stuff, it reveals the type of person that he/she is by the amount of time that he / she spends on a campaign. In other words, while it is important to have a good SMP it is equally important to hire someone who is not lazy or overworked with so many sites to manage.

Thus, you have to make sure that the guy who takes charge of your social media is there not only to do the job for you but is there to do the job right and at the right time. To run a social media campaign requires focus and some observation skills. You can't just post something for the sake of posting and your post should come at the time of day when users are on their noses on Facebook or Twitter.

One fact that you should know about most SMPs is that they are not salesmen and therefore they are not there to sell your wares in social media like the way you do it the traditional way. They are there to create traffic on your Facebook page or Twitter account and sometimes you may not like what they post or would think that they're putting a lot of stuff that are seemingly irrelevant to your business.

Companies should understand that social media is not designed as a selling platform. The reason why it is called social media is because it is where people come together to exchange similar interests or to get in touch with their friends. The selling part of social media should be approached in a different light by feeding people with the things they want to see on their screens before you offer your products or service. Rarely do you get business in social media when you push your products or service like the way you do them in the classified sections. And that kind of selling will probably stay there for a very long time. 

People on Facebook or Twitter love to see or share something that's interesting to them. And you may ask, so what's the whole point of having or hiring an SMP if that's the only stuff social media does for you?

Social media is about reaching out to your markets. Your brand recall improves greatly when you are there to connect with them when you bring those information that they like; when you empathize with them on popular issues or their personal sentiments or when they blurt their disgust over a product or service. And more importantly, your SMP acts as your virtual customer service on Facebook and Twitter and must be there to attend to their personal issues with your product or service.

So how does an SMP sell your product is social media is not a selling platform? As I have said, an SMP is not your virtual salesman, you are. It should be borne in mind that social media should be taken as a promotional tool than a selling tool. However, your SMP is not just your mouthpiece to say something good about what your company does or what you have. Your SMP is the face that your customers see in your product or service.

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