Social media is ubiquitous these days. Everyone uses it, even the elderly stereotypically technologically “illiterate” persons. However, due to the vastness of social media, it can be a subject that is hard to grasp for something with little knowledge in marketing.

The principles behind advertising on social media follow the principles of marketing as well. However, there are also notable differences. If you run a small business, it is absolutely essential that you have a team focusing entirely on social media. At least, you must have a social media marketing agency to handle the workload. The trick is to hire the right people. When you have a team, you must also know what to expect from your team to utilize it to the best of its ability. In case you are not aware of this, here are several things that you must expect from any good social media team:

Producing Fresh Content

One of the most time and creativity consuming tasks of a social media team is to produce new and fresh content to promote your brand. Content also drives traffic and establishes your brand as an authority in a certain subject. The internet is littered with content, so it’s important to produce a variety of engaging content that is unique in its own way. Your social media team should put significant effort into writing articles, creating graphics, and producing videos. Most of these don’t cost much money, but will take time and effort.

Engaging with Customers

One of the most important tasks a social media team has is to engage with the customers on a regular basis. Engaging includes live chat, answering queries, as well as communication on social networks like Facebook. Customer engagement should be conducted on a day to day basis. Without customer engagement, the business will lost customer retention numbers. Good engagement results in a higher number of returning customers and higher rates of customer loyalty.

Regular Updates

This is possibly the most time consuming task a social media team has to engage in. The team members must regularly update all social networks, platforms and blogs as needed. This will include regular scheduled updates, posts on special occasions like Christmas or Valentine’s Day, and keeping all information up to date for SEO purposes. Outdated social media profiles and websites quickly lost appeal to both customers and search engine algorithms.

Data Crunching

This requires some technical and statistical skill. One of the crucial tasks your social media team has will be to collect and analyse data obtained from various social media platforms. These numbers are essential for mapping the target demographic that responds to your advertisements. Also, without this data crunching you will never know if you are getting any returns for the money you spend on various social networks.

Finding Influencers

The social media team should also take it upon themselves to find influencers that can promote your brand. This includes such tasks as getting celebrity endorsements or getting your brand featured on a popular blog. This level of outreach is necessary to attract new customers.

If your social media team cannot accomplish the above, then you need to think about hiring a new one.