Learning how to curate content is an essential task for social media managers. And time is short!Content is an essential part of your social media marketing plan. As a social media marketer, you need to both create original content and curate content from other sources. Time spent reading niche-related blog articles is important to keep up with industry news. Being a part of the conversation by sharing content with thoughtful comments and questions will help your brand be a sought-after source of knowledge as well. Still, feeding the content monster can take over if you let it. To help your content curation become less of a chore, let’s look at nine tactics you can use to maintain control and keep fresh. 1. Find Your Brand
Knowing what to share is the first step in making sure your content is on point. The key aspects of your brand’s content creation should naturally extend to other content that you share to build your content platform.
Your curated content and your originally created content should have the same tone, big ideas and overall fit. Your content platform’s output of original posts, curated content, graphics, Tweets and comments all flow together into what the public sees and judges you on. Yes, it’s important!
2. Stay on Target
I like to call this target the “brand seeds.” Find the three seeds that make up the heart of your social content, and stick to them. For example, if I were working with Sprout Social, my three seeds might be social media, social media management and social customer service.
I would find content that fit these three seeds and add in other content that was related and would be of interest to my followers. Sticking to a narrow focus helps build your area of expertise and knowledge base.
3. Be Organized
Creating systems for your social media consumption is important. If you don’t have something in place for reading content and finding great content, you’ll waste a lot of time. I like to use Feedly to create folders for the different types of content I create. For each folder, I add RSS feeds to fill the needs of different accounts and sometimes clients.
Sources to Find Content
Feedly: Add RSS feeds into folders for different accounts or topics.
Alltop: Create a MyAlltop page to see the blogs that I pull in to review when I curate from this platform. These are some of my go-to sources.
Pinterest: This never lets me down for great content when I search.
BuzzSumo: You can customize alerts in BuzzSumo by keyword, link, author and domain. I get an email for these each morning and check through on the website occasionally.
Planoly:You can find great user generated content by hashtags or keywords. This is perfect for brands or if you’re using a branded hashtag for social media campaigns.
A rookie mistake is sharing all your content at once in a huge bunch and then going long stretches without anything else. Don’t do this. Instead, create a steady stream of content that people won’t be overwhelmed with when they are live on social media.
There are many ways to share your content within Sprout on a schedule that you create:
Set up your Queueto meet your needs. Mine is set to publish four times a day so that I don’t have to think about an exact schedule. This makes it easy to add posts with one click to the Queue.
Use the Compose box to precisely schedule posts at a certain time.
Use the Chrome extension to add to your Queue or schedule at a certain time.
Important social media metricswill be based on your overall social media marketing strategy. This is a bigger conversation that you should have worked into your plan, but the basics are:
Growth in follower count
Number of +1s, Likes or shares
Customer engagement with content
If you notice these things taking a dive, it’s time to rethink your content strategy.
6. Cut What Isn’t Working
Sometimes you hit a sweet spot with your content, and everyone loves it! Then the algorithms change. Again.
If your former best type of content is falling flat, it’s time to remove it from the repertoire. Use your metrics to see what’s working, and do more of that. This is common-sense advice that people fail to implement every day.
7. Ask What People Want
In one of my most difficult-to-manage social media communities (read: low-tech industry with many lurkers), I asked what type of content they liked best and wanted to see on the Facebook Page. It was great to get feedback that reinforced what I was already doing and gave me some ideas for future content.
Now I feel more confident that I’m sharing the content they love, and my Page is doing better than ever. I think many communities want to dictate what they want to share, when the goal should be to give people what they want.
8. Keep Your Sources Fresh
I keep my RSS feeds in Sprout and Feedly full of great blogs to read, but if I find myself skipping over blog articles in my feeds, I reassess whether I want to have them in my daily content to skim and read. Cutting them out here means more efficient curating later.
9. Maximize Your Content
Be there when you share your content. You are the X factor in your social media content curation. Managing the brand online with comments, questions and conversation is what ultimately draws people to your content over and over again. The best-laid social media strategy in the world will fail without people to manage the social media listening and interaction.
I hope these pro tips give you some ideas to tweak your content strategy and create a compelling plan for your future social media marketing efforts.
Brands on Instagram are also seeing huge amounts of engagement on Instagram. According to Forrester Research, per-follower interaction rate is 2.3 percent- way above Facebook (0.2%) and Twitter (0.02%).
That all sounds incredible, right? But how do you find time to dedicate to growing your brand on Instagram? From planning and editing to posting and engaging with your followers, there’s a lot on your plate when it comes to Instagram marketing.
We’d love to help you achieve more with less on Instagram.
In this post, we’re sharing nine time-saving Instagram marketing tips to help you achieve incredible results with less time and effort.
Let’s get started.
1. Create Instagram posts on desktop instead of mobile
Thanks to the great amount of tools out there, social media management has become much easier than it was a few years ago. While Instagram still doesn’t allow publishing through its web application, there are many tools that allow you to create your Instagram posts on desktop first.
Creating Instagram posts on desktop can be a massive time saver. Here’s why:
Creating your graphics or editing your photos on your desktop can be much faster than doing so on your mobile.
Most Instagram scheduling tools save you from the hassle of transferring your graphics and photos from your desktop to your mobile.
With Buffer for Instagram, you can upload your image and schedule a post on your desktop. When it’s the time to post, you will receive a notification on your mobile, and we’d have transferred the image to your mobile!
If you’re preparing your Instagram posts on desktop, here are some useful images sizes to ensure your content always looks great:
Square Image: 1080px in width by 1080px in height
Vertical Image: 1080px in width by 1350px in height
Horizontal Image: 1080px in width by 566px in height
Editor’s note: For more on the perfect images sizes for Instagram (and all other major social media channels) check out this post.
2. Repost quickly with permission
A study by marketing startup, Crowdtap, and the global research company, Ipsos, found that user-generated content is 35 percent more memorable and 50 percent more trusted than traditional and non-user-generated media.
A great way we’ve found to share user-generated content on Instagram is to repost images from our community. This strategy has helped us grow our Instagram following by 300 percent under three months. (If you want to learn how we find the best user-generated content for our account, here’s a short video by Brian Peters, our social media manager.)
A typical way of reposting an image after asking for permission looks something like this:
Take a screenshot on your mobile
Crop away everything apart from the image
Copy and paste or type out the caption
Add your own caption
Finally, publish the user-generated content
Apps like Buffer and Repost allow you to skip all the tedious steps. Simply copy the Share URL of the Instagram post you want to repost and open the reposting app. The post, with both the image and original caption, will be generated for you in the app.
You can read more about how to repost in Instagram here.
Quick reminder: Before you repost, it is best to request permission from the original poster.
3. Plan the layout of your gallery
Instead of thinking about what you want to post every day on the day itself, a good approach might be to plan your posts with your overall social media strategy in mind.
Also, Instagram is becoming a curated platform where businesses and individuals only post their best photos according to specific themes instead of every photo they take. So, it’s important to have a well-curated and consistent profile gallery.
At Buffer, the themes we chose for our Instagram account are:
User-generated content
Digital nomad lifestyle
Productivity and motivation
Knowing these in mind allows us to plan how we want our gallery to look like. Hope our gallery is giving off these vibes!
4. Use tools to separate content creation and engagement
One of the most common productivity advice is to do one thing at a time.
A research by New York University business professor, Sophie Leroy, discovered that there’s a cost to switching your attention from one task to another — even if the switch is brief. Whenever our brains switch to a new task, the old task leaves an “attention residue” that reduces our cognitive performance for a non-trivial amount of time.
Multitasking actually cause us to take a longer time to complete all the tasks because our brains have to constantly switch between those tasks.
For Instagram marketing, there are usually two main things you would do:
Creating or scheduling content
Responding to comments and engaging with others
It is easy to be distracted by the notifications when you only want to publish a post.
A trick can be to use a tool solely for scheduling so that you can focus on creating content when you want to. Then, when you are in the Instagram app, you can focus on replying and engaging.
Taking this a step further, you could…
5. Create a week’s worth of posts in one go
Batching is a popular time management technique that aims to maximize concentration and increase productivity. The idea is to do similar tasks that require similar resources together.
I ended up spending 2.5 hours focused on my writing project and 3.5 hours focused on my research paper. That’s six hours, in one day, of focused work with zero interruptions; not even one quick glance at email.
At the same time, the careful pre-planning required to satisfy my batching rules increased the efficiency of my small task completion. Even though I dedicated 6 hours in one 10 hour work day to uninterrupted focus, another 1.5 hours to exercise and eating, and another 1 hour to a doctors appointment, I still managed to accomplish an impressive collection of logistical tasks both urgent and non-urgent.
Taking this technique to Instagram marketing, it could mean grouping content creation and scheduling together instead of creating and publishing posts on a daily basis or even several times a day. Creating the posts from scratch on a daily basis can be very interruptive to your schedule.
Here are some things you can try:
Plan a photo-taking session to take multiple photos that can be used for a series of Instagram posts
Create and edit all the images you want to post for the upcoming week altogether since you are already in the image editor
Upload all the images onto a scheduling tool and add captions to all of them in one setting
The additional benefit of creating a week’s worth of posts at a go is that your Instagram posts will be more consistent as you will be thinking ahead.
6. Schedule time to engage
Another task you can batch is responding and engaging with others on Instagram. By batching them and scheduling the time to do that, you gain control over your schedule instead of being dictated by notifications.
In the experiment above, professor and author, Cal Newport set himself a simple rule:
All work must be done in blocks of at least 30 minutes. If I start editing a paper, for example, I have to spend at least 30 minutes editing. If I need to complete a small task, like handing in a form, I have to spend at least 30 minutes doing small tasks. Crucially, checking email and looking up information online count as small tasks. If I need to check my inbox or grab a quick stat from the web, I have to spend at least 30 minutes dedicated to similarly small diversions.
Here’s what you can try:
Turn off notifications for your Instagram account.
Schedule 30 minutes to an hour on your calendar every day to reply to comments, like, and comment on your followers’ posts.
You could also schedule up to a few sessions like this in a day if you want to have a faster response time on Instagram.
This will prevent the notifications from disrupting your day when you are working on other tasks.
7. Prepare commonly used hashtags in an Evernote note
After analyzing over 65,000 social media posts for their study on hashtags, TrackMaven found that:
Instagram posts with nine hashtags perform best, with an average engagement of 28,548 interactions per post.
While engagement starts to decrease after this peak, posts with more than nine hashtags still have higher engagement than posts with fewer than eight hashtags. This suggests that on Instagram, it’s always better to err on the side of more hashtags rather than fewer.
However, typing nine or more hashtags every time you want to publish a post can be very time-consuming. A solution is to create a few sets of commonly used hashtags for different themes in an Evernote note or your preferred note-taking app.
This way, you can simply copy and paste the hashtags without having to re-type them every time. Then, you can also add more hashtags that are specific to each post.
If you are creating the post using a desktop (as mentioned in the first tip above), this process becomes even easier as it is much faster to copy and paste on the desktop than to switch between apps on mobile, selecting, copying, and pasting the hashtags.
8. Use the same filter and/or edits
Here’s another trick to help you save time and create a consistent profile gallery: use the same filter and/or edits for most — or even all — your images.
A lot of the time spent on publishing an Instagram post is usually spent on editing the image. By using the same filter and/or edits for every image, you can drastically reduce the editing time. This not only saves you time but also helps to keep your Instagram posts consistent.
If you use a photo editing application on your desktop like Lightroom, you can save a filter and the edits as a custom template.
9. Repurpose posts on other platforms for Instagram (and vice versa)
Your Instagram posts don’t have to exist on Instagram only, and that’s the same for your other social media content.
Instead of re-creating new content for each social media platform, you could repurpose your posts on other platforms for Instagram and vice versa. This increases the impact of your content and saves you time from creating new content.
His strategy is to record a video or audio every week and turn it into four long-form articles and 40 social media images. The concept is that a Facebook or YouTube video can be turned into numerous multi-media content for all other platforms. I think this is a great way to make full use of your content.
Using Buffer, you can easily schedule the content you have made for other social media platforms for Instagram as well. For example, if you have created a short clip for Facebook, you can also cross-post it onto your Instagram profile.
Similarly, you can do it the other way round. If you have prepared a photo for an Instagram post, you can also schedule it for your other social media profiles.
Over to you
And that’s the nine time-saving Instagram marketing tips to help you achieve results for your business with less time and effort. As a recap, here are the nine tips:
Create Instagram posts on desktop instead of mobile
Repost quickly with permission
Plan how you want your gallery to look like
Use a tool to separate content creation and engagement
Create a week’s worth of posts at a go
Schedule time to engage
Prepare commonly used hashtags in an Evernote note
Use the same filter and edits
Repurpose posts on other platforms for Instagram (and vice versa)
Are there any productivity tips you have for fellow Instagram marketers?
YouTube Expands Mobile Live Streaming and Launches Super Chat
YouTube Expands Mobile Live Streaming and Launches Super Chat: YouTube rolled out mobile live streaming to “every creator with more than 10,000 subscribers” and announced that other creators will have it “soon.” YouTube announced that mobile live streaming is built “directly into the YouTube mobile app” and has “all the same features as regular YouTube videos” such as search, the ability to find videos through playlists and recommendations, and protections from unauthorized use. YouTube began testing this new feature last June with a select group of creators.
YouTube also released Super Chat, “a new live stream monetization tool… [that] lets any fan watching a live stream stand out from the crowd and get a creator’s attention by purchasing chat messages that are highlighted in bright colors and stay pinned to the top of the chat window for up to five hours.” YouTube began beta testing Super Chat in January and has since opened it to creators in more than 20 countries and viewers in over 40 countries. A complete list of the eligibility requirements for Super Chat and the countries where it’s currently available can be found on the YouTube Help page.
Whether you’re just getting started with social media marketing, or you’re an experienced marketer, there’s always something new to learn. Asking the right questions can improve your chances of success and help you avoid costly mistakes. In order to help steer you in the right direction, we’ve compiled a list of some common social media questions you might be dying to ask.
1. Do I Have to Be on Every Social Network?
Answer: No.
Here’s why: As tempting as it is to increase your visibility by jumping on every social network, a lot of times it’s too much to take on. Instead of creating accounts just for the sake having a profile, get strategic with the networks you choose.
An easy way to figure out which social networks to be on is by simply asking where’s my audience’s attention? If they’re not on Pinterest, there’s no need to spend a bunch of time and energy there. Check out our social media marketing guide to help decide which network is best for your brand.
Another good litmus test for which networks to choose is by asking yourself what value you can bring to the network. If you can’t create content that people on the network want to see, put your efforts elsewhere.
For instance, if you have the time and resources to make outstanding videos, then you should definitely have a presence on YouTube so you can share those videos across the networks your audience loves most. If you don’t have the bandwidth for video production, get off of YouTube and don’t feel guilty about not being there.
Remember, you don’t have to take on everything at once. Start out with one or two profiles. If you see success and have time to expand, then slowly add other networks.
2. Do My Social Media Handles Have to Be Consistent?
Answer: Yes.
Here’s why: Not only will it be easier for you to promote your social media handles if they’re consistent, but it will also be easier for fans to find and tag you. When usernames are different across every network, it can get confusing. If you Tweet an Instagram image but you have two different usernames, it complicates things. Inevitably, someone will tag your Twitter name on Instagram or your Instagram name on Twitter and you’ll miss opportunities for engagement.
Today it’s not only domain names that matter; usernames are just as, if not more, valuable in terms of digital real estate. Sites like Knowem tell you whether or not your desired username is available across multiple networks.
If your first choice isn’t available, don’t despair. Get creative. And it’s okay if your social media usernames are slightly different than your URL. What’s more important is that your usernames are consistent across each network. For instance, the toothbrush subscription company Quip was unable to get the username Quip on social media. So instead, they used GetQuip and kept it consistent across all their social channels.
If your exact username isn’t available, don’t sweat it. Use an alternative like “Companyhq” or “getCompany.” One thing you should avoid is adding numbers, characters, underscores or phrases that have nothing to do with your business. Keep your usernames as simple as possible.
3. What Type of Content Should I Share?
Answer: The type of content your audience wants to see.
Here’s why: It all comes down to knowing your ideal customer. If you have a solid understanding of their lifestyle, desires and pain points, it will become much easier to create or find relevant content they’re likely to enjoy and share.
Beyond that, start following influencers in your industry who create outstanding content and share their stuff. Or you can use it to inspire you to write a few blog posts or conversation starters that riff off the topic or expand upon it. You can also search relevant hashtags or check out what’s trending on Twitter and Instagram to understand what people are talking about right now, then join in on those conversations.
Idea generation is the hardest part, so let your audience do it for you. Talk to your followers or ideal customers and ask them what they would like to see. You can also ask your employees to contribute one blog post per month. When you divvy up the work, it becomes less stressful and more thoughtful.
4. How Often Should I Post?
Answer: It depends.
Here’s why: Your posting frequency depends on your resources and audience. Your goal is to get quality content that your audience will love in front of as many eyes as possible. Never sacrifice quality for quantity.
It’s better to put nothing out there than to publish content that’s subpar. If that means you can only post on Facebook three times per week—but they are three really good posts that get a lot of engagement—that’s perfectly acceptable. Just find a consistent schedule that you can maintain.
If you’re struggling to publish on a consistent basis, you can always repurpose content. For instance, if you made a YouTube video, take 30-second segments of it and post them on Instagram. Old blog posts can be Retweeted with new phrasing and imagery.
In fact, you can set a strategy in which every blog post gets shared across every network on day one, a repeat on Twitter on day three, a repeat on Facebook on day eight and so on.
If you share the same content across networks, each post should be phrased differently. For example, LinkedIn doesn’t use hashtags, so you wouldn’t want to copy and paste something from Twitter. An infographic might perform better on Pinterest than on Facebook.
You’ll have to track what kind of content and format does best on each network using social media analytics software. Take that data into consideration when publishing on each platform.
5. What’s the Best Time to Post?
Answer: It depends.
Here’s why: We actually have an entire post on the best times to post to social media. The reality is there is no single best time to post. It all depends on the network you’re using and when your audience is most active.
It’s going to take a little trial and error to get your timing down. A good idea is to use Sprout to schedule your content to be shared at different times and days of the week.
Then dig into your analytics to see which posts are getting the most engagement to get an idea of when the best time to post is for your audience, on each specific network.
6. How Do I Get More Followers?
Answer: By giving people a reason to follow you.
Here’s why: Regardless of which network you’re talking about, it’s the quality not quantity of followers that matters. You need followers who will actually engage with your content, not just add to your follower count.
Since people are bombarded with content from all over the place, you have to give them a compelling enough reason to follow you. You’re not just asking people to follow you. You’re asking for their attention which is a limited resource. Why should they give their attention to you instead of someone else?
There are plenty of ways to earn their attention. For instance, Taco Bell gets people to follow them on Snapchat by sharing exclusive content that fans can’t see anywhere else.
Another approach is to share exclusive industry news and events. This tactic works particularly well on Twitter because86% of usersuse it to get news. NFL insider Ian Rapoport gained over 1 million Twitter followers by being a reputable source of the latest news in the NFL.
Another popular tactic is to share coupons, deals and giveaways exclusively for social media followers. National Geographic recently launched their Wild to Inspire Instagram contest where users had to submit videos that showcase wildlife or people making a difference for animals in the wild.
Beyond that, using appropriate hashtags (especially on Instagram) and potentially partnering with influencers forco-marketing campaigns to expand your reach are great ways to get engaged followers. Also, Remember that social media is a conversation, not a broadcast. Respond to your followers and interact with them. Go where they are. Get involved.
7. Does Social Media Affect SEO?
Answer: It can, but indirectly.
Here’s why: One common misconception about social media and SEO is that getting your content shared on social media will help improve your rankings. Google has flat out stated it doesn’t count social shares in its algorithm. Social shares are easy to manipulate, so they aren’t the most reliable metric to decide the value of a piece of content.
However, social media can still help your SEO efforts indirectly. You can use social media to network with influencers like bloggers, editors and journalists. These are all people that can potentially link to your website in their own content, which can help your SEO.
By using social media to build relationships with the right people, you can even land guest blogging or interview opportunities. Just be cautious of spamming people. You don’t want to come right out the gate begging people to link to your content. Instead, build relationships organically by liking, sharing and replying to their content. Build familiarity first, then when the time feels right look for an opportunity to work together.
8. Should I Connect With Everyone?
Answer: No.
Here’s why: You don’t always have to “follow back” on Twitter or Instagram or accept every LinkedIn request. Why? Because you’re curating a network. Who you follow says as much about your brand as who follows you. It’s ok to be selective about who you follow.
Here are some ideas on who to follow:
Users you’re genuinely interested in hearing from
Influencers you’re trying to build a relationships with
Loyal customers
People who frequently engage with you on social media or share your content
The downside of following a bunch of people is it makes it difficult to sort through your feed and see the most important messages like mentions of your brand or products. A good workaround is to use a social media management tool to manage your incoming messages. Sprout’s Smart Inbox makes it extremely easy to isolate messages that require a response.
Also keep in mind that you don’t have to follow people to engage with them. You Like Tweets or Instagram posts or leave comments whether you follow them or not.
9. Should I Pay for Social Media Advertising?
Answer: Probably.
Here’s why: On a platform like Facebook, you have to “pay to play” in many cases. In 2016 alone, organic reach dropped 52% for publishers. And with Twitter and Instagram following in the footsteps of Facebook with an algorithmic feed, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get your content seen organically.
Whether or not you decide to try your hand at social media advertising will depend largely on your budget. If you can afford to spend some money to promote content on social media, it might be worth experimenting with. Decide on how much you’re willing or able to spend first, then create an advertising strategy within it.
Facebook is by far the most popular platform marketers use for social media advertising. In Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 84% of respondents said they use Facebook ads. However, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram (via Facebook), YouTube and other networks offer advertising as well. Feel free to test out different platforms to see which works best for you.
In addition to getting engagement on your posts and growing your follower count, you can also use social media advertising to generate leads, grow your email list or get more eyes on a piece of content.
10. Do I Need an Editorial Calendar?
Answer: Yes.
Here’s why: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
An editorial calendar is a necessary step in bringing your strategy to life. It can help you stay on track and consistent in messaging across various networks. It can also help you create quality content by planning ahead. When you see the entire month across all networks in one place, it’s easier to edit the copy for strength and consistency.
Also, when you’re planning ahead, you have a better chance of maximizing your impact on social media. You’ll have time to plan a distribution strategy for any upcoming content, instead of doing everything as it happens. For instance, if you know you’re going to launch a contest or sale at the end of the month, reach out to influencers in advance and gain some momentum.
Content will be more likely to go viral if you’ve already lined up influencers to Tweet about your product launch or big announcement the same time you do. Check out this post that outlines four steps for creating a social media editorial calendar.
11. What’s My Social Media ROI?
Answer: The amount you earned from your social campaigns, minus the amount you invested.
Here’s why: Social media ROI can be a tricky subject, and 41% of companies say they have no idea whether or not their social efforts are paying off at all. But calculating the ROI isn’t as difficult as you might think. Read our guide on how to measure social media ROI for a complete step-by-step walk-through.
Keep in mind ROI might look different depending on your goals. If you’re using social media to get leads, your return won’t be the same as it would if you were using it to build brand awareness.
12. I’m in a “Boring” Industry, Do I Still Need Social Media?
Answer: Yes.
Here’s why: Social media isn’t just reserved for athletes, fashion brands and retailers. When it comes to marketing, your goal is to reach your target audience where they’re paying the most attention. And for the past 10+ years, that has been social media. A whopping 78% of Americans have at least one social media profile, so there’s a strong chance your target customers are on at least one of the major networks.
If you’re unsure which network to reach your audience on, we’ve compiled a list of the demographics of some of the most popular social networks. That’ll give you a nice starting point, but also make sure you dive in and get familiar with any network you’re interested in joining.
Remember, social media isn’t an advertising platform for you shout your message as loudly as possible. Instead, use it as a platform to educate and entertain your audience.
For instance, taxes are about as boring as it gets for most non-accounting people. But H&R Block puts together fun social media campaigns that don’t make you cringe at the thought of tax season.
13. Is It OK to Share Promotional Content?
Answer: Yes, but don’t overdo it.
Here’ why: There’s a fine line between using social media to promote your brand, and spamming. If every other Tweet from your company is promoting your products and services, you risk losing your audience. Our Q3 2016 Index found that posting too many promotions is the most annoying action brands take on social media.
Not only that, but 46% of people are willing to unfollow a brand for sending too many promotional messages.
There’s no magic ratio of promotional to non-promotional social media content you should share. You’ll have to find the right cadence for your audience. To be on the safe side, aim to share much more non-promotional content than promotional.
14. Do I Need a Social Media Management Tool?
Answer: Yes.
Here’s why: Native social media apps are great for personal use. In fact, it’s what they were made for. But as a business, your needs are a little different. You often need to schedule content in advance, look at in-depth analytics to measure performance and work in teams. The native social media platforms weren’t built for that, which is the reason why social media management tools like Sprout Social exist.
If social media is an important part of your business (it definitely should be) then you need the right tools to work more efficiently and effectively.
15. Should I Outsource My Social Media Marketing?
Answer: It depends.
Here’s why: For brands that don’t have the resources to put together social media campaigns from scratch, working with an agency can be a smart move. Social media agencies understand the nuances of different networks, and can often help you be much more effective.
On the flip side, you don’t want to take a completely hands-off approach. That’s why often times social media agencies prefer to work with clients, rather than completely take over everything. Nobody knows your brand like you, so you should always have a hand in your social efforts. But there’s nothing wrong with getting help from specialists.
