Ever have those small, detailed tasks that drive you nuts? Imagine being a social media manager! We are inundated with details that absolutely must be error-free. In an effort to have some fun – and maybe vent just a little – we thought we would write about a few of our top ‘nagging’ tasks!
Nagging Task #1: Reviewing and Optimizing LinkedIn Accounts
By Amanda
Most people get off to a good start when setting up their own account. They add a picture, their title, where they work, some work experience and education. Done! LinkedIn account complete! However, there are a few other areas that need to be completed to fully optimize a LinkedIn account. You should customize the URL, add a phone number and address, add three websites and then add a SUMMARY! I see countless LinkedIn accounts that don’t have a summary. This boggles my mind because the summary is one of the first things a person will look for when they view your LinkedIn profile. The summary area is a place for an individual to highlight their career and themselves. It should be two to three paragraphs in length and contains keywords that are written in the first person. Leave the third-person references to athletes and movie stars.
Nagging Task #2: Checking the Media
By Lauren
There is very little I complain about when it comes to my job, but checking media involves a level of tedium unmatched by any other task related to social media. It involves signing in to clients’ social media accounts and checking to see if there have been comments made, messages sent, or ‘likes’ about the content posted. Then we must respond appropriately. This is all well and good when it’s a simple “thank you for the RT” on a Twitter account, but when the messages require a more thorough response, it can get a little complicated. I don’t want to say something back to the person that a client wouldn’t say, so I then have to email the client and tell them my plan, and ask for their guidance. Most clients are quick to respond and the correspondence is resolved quickly. Some clients, however, are less speedy thus leaving things unresolved.
Nagging Task #3: Proofreading
By Pete
For me, the creative process has always been the most enjoyable facet of writing. I sometimes tell people that I essentially get paid to ask questions so that I learn about a topic and understand it thoroughly enough to articulate it in a dynamic and easy-to-understand way. The most pain-staking part of the process has always been proofreading, especially when I am forced to proofread my own work. Yet it’s so necessary, because you can create a masterpiece and spoil it all by allowing just one silly typo or misspelled name to slip through. The harsh truth is that readers will tend to remember the mistakes more than anything, so you simply have to aim for perfection, even though mistakes are inevitable.
Nagging Task #4: Managing Blogs
By Rachel
Everyone can agree that blogs are critical to helping drive website traffic and inbound leads. However, blogs for the social media manager can be a nightmare. First, we need to determine the editorial calendar, which is a task that involves creative brainstorming with our clients. Once we decide on the topics, I typically ask Lauren write the blog content. Lauren says the most difficult part of blog writing is writing it in the voice of our clients. This involves gaining extensive knowledge of the clients’ industry while keeping in mind the personality, preferences and brand of the client.
Once the blog is written, I review and edit the blog before sending it to the client to review. There are times when extensive edits are made before I send it to Amanda to load and promote. The preparation for loading is cumbersome as I need to create a keyword-laden, yet gripping headline, a blog category, tags, and pictures that accompany the blog (along with their own titles, alt tags, descriptions, and hyperlinks). When Amanda logs into the blog, she also needs to check for comments and plug-ins that might need updated (for our WordPress clients). In terms of promoting the blog once it’s live, we need to consider which channels we plan to promote them on, what alternative headline we’ll use to promote, character-length limits and hashtags (for Twitter), and the best time(s) to promote for optimal views. Below is a screenshot of just one prep sheet for a client.
Typically, our clients hire us for one of two reasons: they know little about and/or lack the passion for the technical, marketing, or social aspects of social media or they have limited time to market themselves effectively on this new communications platform. Many are grateful that we not only manage this for them – including the myriad of changes involved in social media - but that we also stay in frequent communication so they’re aware of what’s going on, as this is such an intrinsic part of their business. We’re glad they entrust us to execute this very public part of their business – and we certainly know the level of detail that’s required to do these tasks properly!
