What can a Social Media Manager do for you and your business? Do you even need one at this time? These are questions that this article was written to address, and to perhaps shed a bit of light on the entire social media aspect of business.

In the past few years, social media has grown and transformed into an entirely different beast than ever before. It is so different than the early days of blogging and Myspace, that it’s easy to forget that social media for business is simply a new form of a very, very old practice.

In Greek and Roman ruins, one can see scores of graffiti etched into walls on both main streets and back alleys. It looks like elegant scripture to us, but in fact much of this graffiti declares simple things like where to get the best wine, which merchants will rip you off, and who has the best prices in town. That’s right – even the Grecian people had social media to spread the word about the companies they loved and hated. Of course, some of these “buy here” writings could easily have been from a few of the merchants themselves, but that would make them the grandfathers of social media marketing.

Today, these practices are still going strong, but the audience has grown significantly, and the effective methods have become much more complicated. People no longer simply believe you have the best product, service, or prices simply because you say so – they want to hear it from their peers and demand that you show them you care through ongoing relationships. For small businesses and entrepreneurs, this can become a huge time (and money) drain once you consider all of the social media sites in use, and that each one comes with its own audience and set of rules.

Thus the necessary invention of a new occupation: the Social Media Manager. These professionals have made it their business to understand the inner workings of the various social media sites, and learn which businesses belong on which networks, and how to most effectively use each network for marketing, conversions, and customer loyalty. A Social Media Manager can build your following, create efficient marketing processes for each, and create a base of raving fans usually in less than half the time it would take you to figure out how to even use each site.

Currently, the big hitters in social media are Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. On top of these, there are many bookmarking networks, blogging communities, and forums that you may wish to be a part of. Each one will help establish you as an expert in the community and a home name in the business. However, it is often very tedious to manage all of these profiles and networks yourself, or even to outsource it to other members of your team. It is, in fact, more time and cost efficient to have each member play to their strengths – which means having a member on the team who excels in social media.

Social media is the newest form of an old method of communication and marketing, and it is not going anywhere soon. The only predictions for social media is that it will grow, and perhaps become more and more complex as more and more networks are created. It is no surprise that Social Media Managers are in very high demand. You can be sure that even if you are not using one, your competitors are!  Contact me to find out how we can help you!