Whether you鈥檙e a new or seasoned social media manager, managing a brand鈥檚 social presence can be overwhelming. After all, you鈥檙e behind every post and every interaction with potential customers so the pressure is on.
One way to ease that and make sure you鈥檙e at the top of your game is with a social media checklist. In this article, we鈥檒l cover the daily and monthly tasks every social media manager needs to succeed.
Before we get into the checklist, we鈥檙e going to break down the work of a social media manager into four pillars.
If you don鈥檛 share often, you鈥檒l struggle to build an audience. Without an audience, you won鈥檛 have much to engage with. This also means that you鈥檒l have little to no data about what works well and nothing to optimize or review.
This is all to say that to have a robust social media presence, you must be strong in all four areas. Now, let鈥檚 dive into the daily tasks you鈥檒l need to complete in this role.
On a daily basis, you will be focused on the first three pillars: sharing, engaging, and monitoring.
While there is some reviewing and optimizing that can happen daily, you can better identify patterns when you do so on a monthly basis once you have compiled a good data set.
Your number one priority on social media should be sharing content.
That鈥檚 what will allow you to reach your target audience, attract them to your brand, and keep them engaged.
When we surveyed 310 U.S.-based marketers in 2022, we found that most social media marketers post between four to six times a week on social media platforms.
While that is the average, some marketers post more or less depending on the platform. For instance, 29% of marketers surveyed said they post on Facebook every day while 35% said they do the same on Twitter.
However, when asked about Pinterest, most marketers surveyed only post two to three times a week.
Of course, how often you post will depend on a variety of factors including the return on investment.
Something else to consider is that sharing content doesn鈥檛 only mean from your brand. It can include user-generated content or content from another non-competitor that would add value to your audience.
One of the easiest ways to engage your audience is by responding to their comments.
If you鈥檙e struggling to generate comments in the first place, try starting a conversation and asking your audience to join it.
In this post, sunscreen brand asks its audience to share ways they protect their skin.
In that same vein, you can ask your audience to tag a friend that would enjoy your post.
Another way to engage your audience is by responding to direct messages. Often, consumers will reach out to brands on social media to learn more about the brand, ask specific questions related to shared content, or get help.
It鈥檚 important that you review these questions every day to leave a positive impression on your audience. If you take too long to answer, they may lose interest or escalate the issue by complaining to the public.
You can take it one step further by working internally with your customer support team to develop an escalation process once a customer reaches out via social media.
When you鈥檙e growing your business, it鈥檚 vital that you know how your brand is being perceived online and what is being said about it.
According to our 2022 social media marketing report, 35% of marketers surveyed track brand mentions and hashtags on social media.
Thankfully with social media, that information is within reach. You can easily set up alerts to be noticed whenever your brand is tagged or mentioned on social media.
You can also routinely do searches on platforms like TikTok where alerts aren鈥檛 readily available.
This will allow you to gauge brand sentiment and quickly address concerns from your target audience.
Pro-tip: includes a brand monitoring tool that will help you stay on top of all mentions and even track your competitors.
Trends come and go just about every week on social media.
The trick is jumping in as they鈥檙e growing in popularity and knowing when they鈥檝e died out.
The best way to find trends is by simply being on social media 鈥� social listening. You may start to notice a particular sound being used often or a song being added to every Reel you come across.
Some social platforms will tell you exactly what鈥檚 trending, like on TikTok鈥檚 "Discover" tab and Twitter鈥檚 "Trending" tab.
There are also accounts that are dedicated to finding trends as they happen and explaining their origin. This will help you determine which ones are worth joining and which ones you should stay out of.
As a brand, everything you put out there is a representation of your values. That鈥檚 why it鈥檚 important that you be extra careful when assessing trends.
See what videos other brands and users are creating with that trend. Are they funny and creative? Are they offensive? Do they align with your brand?
If not, it鈥檚 always OK to skip because there'll be another one coming around the corner.
When we think of social media, we often think of content-sharing apps like TikTok, Twitter, and Twitch.
However, some social apps 鈥� think Reddit and Quora 鈥� focus instead on conversations and community.
You may be surprised to find how many conversations people may be having about your brand on these websites. In addition to being a great source of information surrounding brand sentiment, you can also learn a lot about your audience鈥檚 challenges and pain points.
You can then leverage that information into value-packed posts to attract your audience.
Building brand loyalty is no easy feat. So once you鈥檝e accomplished it, you have to invest time to maintain it.
This means connecting with your brand evangelists on a regular basis.
Yes! 馃槏
鈥� Brandon Blackwood (@BBlackwoodNYC)
This can look like commenting on their content and/or sharing it on your platform, giving them access to exclusive content, shouting them out, and inviting them to participate during live streams.
While social media can be filled with parasocial relationships, don鈥檛 let that be the case for you and your audience.
Data is every brand鈥檚 most sacred asset. It holds incredibly valuable insights about your target audience.
On social media, your data will tell you the type of content your audience enjoys, what grabs their attention, and what generates conversions.
It will also help you identify trends. In fact, when we asked social media marketers"How do you predict which social media trends are worth investing in?" The top answer was by analyzing their social media analytics.
So, which metrics are marketers reviewing? Here are the top five, according to our survey:
If you have at least one month鈥檚 worth of data, you can start finding out which posts perform the best and dig into the why.
Through your analytics, you can also assess which social platforms are worth investing in. According to our survey, the top three metrics marketers look at to make this decision are:
Whether you鈥檙e already succeeding or struggling on social media, will always set you up for a better month ahead.
Once you鈥檝e reviewed your analytics and know what went well and what can be improved, you can set your goals for next month.
For instance, say you notice that last month鈥檚 videos outperformed any other content type and generated 2,000 visits to your website. For next month, you can up the number of videos you post and set a visit goal of 3,000.
Whether it鈥檚 increasing your reach, generating more engagement, or driving more traffic to your website, setting goals will serve as your north star and allow you to schedule content that aligns with these goals.
When you鈥檙e managing multiple social media accounts, you have to plan your content ahead of time. Otherwise, you risk under planning and not having enough content.
You鈥檝e already set your goals for the month. So now, it鈥檚 just a matter of creating content that best aligns with them.
For instance, say you want to increase your reach and last month鈥檚 data shows that your most shared content relates to three main topics. You can then center next month鈥檚 content on these three topics.
When scheduling content, you should also consult other teams to determine if there are any events, announcements, or campaigns that you will need to share.
The earlier you have your creative assets 鈥� images, videos, copy 鈥� the easier it will be to create your content calendar.
Pro-tip: We created a s to make planning posts and coordinating campaigns easy.
There you have it 鈥� a detailed social media checklist that will have you on top of your game every day.