Social media marketing is a not a difficult concept. It’s pretty logical and straightforward once you understand the basics, but a lot of times, you simply don’t have the time to break it apart and figure it out. Social media management requires consistency, constant effort. It requires strategic planning and research, and can turn into a full-time job if you’re really trying to make your social media presence work for you. The problem is that you didn’t go into business to spend 4-8 hours a day on your social media marketing. As a small business owner or an independent business professional, that time can be spent doing other things for your business and focusing on your core values.

Most professionals understand the importance and value of social media management. Even so, social media management is usually the first thing to fall to the wayside due to the fact there is simply not enough time to execute an effective social media plan. That is where social media professionals come in. As social media professionals, we’ve dedicated our time and energy to focus on mastering the art of social media management. Due the fact that social media marketing is what we focus on, we’ve taken the time to learn how to make social media work for you.

Here are 3 major reasons to hire a social media professional.

We know all things social media, just like you know all things pertaining to your industry. You wouldn’t let your local plumbing expert build you a car because your local plumbing expert is neither a mechanical engineer, nor an auto mechanic. If you want it done right, it just makes sense to hire an expert to do expert work. We always say not to overthink social media, but you really shouldn’t underestimate it either. If you want your social media platforms to be effective in helping to grow your online presence and increase revenue, this isn’t something you want to half-ass. Consulting a professional will help to point you in the right direction and enable you to understand where your focus should be pertaining to your social media account. Often times, we try to absorb too much at once, and when you’re trying to start, operate, and market your business, it’s hard to figure out what aspect to focus on. A good social media professional can help you assess everything and put it into easy, bite-sized pieces that can better fit into your schedule.

You want to get to the next level in your business. We’ve encountered several clients who’ve done an awesome job in marketing themselves via their social media accounts along with other methods, and seem to be experiencing great success from their organic growth, but have gotten to a point where they don’t seem to be growing anymore and the strategies they’ve previously implemented have become less effective or completely ineffective. At this point, it makes sense to contact a social media professional to help you get from behind that brick wall. As professionals, we can assess your current strategy and pinpoint where the issue is and how to improve upon it. If you seem to have done a great job on your own, imagine what can be done if you bring us in to help out!

You simply don’t have the time to figure it out BUT you know it’s important and want it done right. There’s no shame in admitting that you don’t have the time to do social media, the shame is when you completely ignore it and act as if it’s not important. (Shame on you!) Several social media professionals, including ourselves, offer the option of full implementation, where you essentially outsource your social media platforms to us and allow us to manage the whole kit and caboodle. This is where you absolutely MUST MUST MUST hire a professional. Social media professionals, the good ones anyway, can help you create an online identity for your business; not just a presence. An online identity is essentially your brand i.e., the culture of your business, its voice, stylistic aspects, appearance… all of those factors that are usually afterthoughts or non-thoughts to a non-professional are primary points of focus to true social media professionals. It’s the little things that set you apart from the competitor that a social media professional can contribute to your business when you don’t have the time. We take the time to understand and dissect your target market and mold your social media marketing platforms to fit that demographic.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy…Basically it makes your life easier by hiring a social media professional. Those 4-8 hours it takes to make your social media what it needs to be to differentiate yourself could easily be spent focusing on the core values of your business/ personal brand. Even if you only seek consultation and don’t go for the kit and caboodle route, you can save time. If you can save an hour a day, 5-7 a week, 20-30ish a month, where would you invest that time? A nap would be nice, meditation, lunch, a new project, a craft, perhaps? As entrepreneurs, we struggle with time and often try to be too many places at once, with a social media professional, you can streamline all of that and be more efficient with the mere 24 hours a day that we are all allotted. It’s really a no brainer =D

As always, share your ideas with us. We’d love to hear what you have to say. We hope you found this post useful and informative. Please leave your comments below and feel free to connect with us on Twitter!

Developing a strategy with the metrics in place to measure your efforts, sets you up for success. But just mentioning the word metrics can send most running in the opposite direction. With the right metrics in place and some online tracking support you really can solve the mystery to Social Media Marketing success. The information that you'll obtain will let you know just where to spend your time and money while simultaneously providing you with a steady feedback from  your customers. Many debate on whether or not you can actually see a ROI on your Social Media Marketing efforts, but you can if you put the right measurements in place. All it takes is a spreadsheet, some data and a little analysis. Today we want to discuss with you putting those measurements into place.

All a metric does is quantify and evaluate something! Simple, right? Well when it comes to your Social Media campaigns your metrics will help you understand what is and isn't working for you or your customer. And with this knowledge, you can target your products, messaging and efforts on what does work. You see, every piece of content that you create and share is designed to enlist a response from your audience. Therefore, you need to have metrics in place to measure what is happening to the content and conversations you create. The issue arises in measuring that response, so we need to break it down into portions that we can measure:

• Actions: How are people interacting with your website, content and presences on various social platforms?
• Attention: How are people accessing your content and how long are people engaging with your content?
• Community: Who are your Evangelists, the individuals who are invested in you? They often grow with you as you strengthen your presence.
• Influencer's: Who are the individuals that are sharing and engaging with your content the most? Chances are they are causing others to do the same.
• Interest: What catches the attention of your audience and drives action? This is where content and context meet to create the best content for your audience.
• Listening: What are people saying about your business and where are they saying it? Invest time in learning as much as you can about your audience by listening to them.
• Reach: How far is your content traveling and for how long ? Quality content not only gets noticed but it also gets shared.
• Views: How many times is someone visiting your sites or seeing a piece of content? Is this a first-time or a repeat visit?

These eight sub-divisions of response can all be individually measured, combine them and you will begin to see a treasure trove of information to help your tweak and make adjustments to your efforts. We know that this concept can be pretty intimidating for most. Luckily there are tools out there designed to help you. Let's begin by breaking down the type of services out there:

• Single-metrics service providers: These are third party metrics measurement systems that only measure one thing. These services include Klout or Kred, which measures your influence across your social platforms. Tweriod is a service that tells you the best times to post to twitter.
• One-site metrics: These are the measurements that you receive directly from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Typcially they can provide you with useful information, but you still have to put it all together. If you happen to use an automation service to schedule your posts such as, HootSuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, CustomScoop etc., you can begin to obtain measurements across your multiple platforms. You will still be limited in the information you will generate from them without taking things a step further.
• Advanced metrics: This is where things can get really exciting! Accessing the true power of metrics takes advanced techniques, that you are fully capable of learning with Google Analytics. It is one  of the best tools you can access as a business with a website and social presence. Extract reports that allow you to view your metrics at a microscopic level.

With all of these metrics tools you now have some good information you can put to use. The data you collect is your guide to creating the best content for your audience at the right times in the most visible place. This is key information that you will want to have handy as you begin to lay out your content calendar. Taking the time to map out your content ensures that your messaging will be on brand and takes the guess work out of your daily social media engagement. Keep in mind that you want to leave room for the unexpected.