3 Steps to Become a Social Media Guru

There are two decisions that any eCommerce business owner has to make right from the moment of founding a company. First, you have to decide what should be the voice of your company. Second, you have to know how to introduce your company as a brand with that exact voice to the target audience. The sooner you make these decisions the better because if you chose the wrong voice or deliver it via wrong channels you may miss your target audience ending up with little to no sales.

As an insider in this field with several years of marketing experience, I have learned a few other important lessons that can save you from failure and keep you competitive among other Social Media Marketing freelancers. Read on to learn my secrets to being a social media guru!

Take Time to Research

Before doing anything, talk to your client and ask the most important questions – Who is your client; What is your competitive advantage; What do you expect from your social media pages? The very first document that a social media guru needs to create is the Social Media Marketing Strategy. This document is based on the extensive research conducted on the client’s brand and product, as well as on the market and the biggest competitors. This is a must for both established and new companies and will serve as the basis for all your following actions.

Your Social Media Marketing Strategy should include the list of platforms you need to be present on and the type of content you need to share on each platform to engage with the right audience. You may find it useful to review the competitor pages and see what type of content is most engaging to their audiences. A social media guru will always take advantage of what is already working. Try also to analyze what the reasons are that other types of content don’t get likes and shares and reverse engineer this information to create content that meets the audiences needs. Finally, don’t move on until you align the strategy with your client. It will form the voice of the brand on socials, and a social media guru knows how sensitive this can be.

Daily Communication

Once a social media guru knows the goals, it is time to move on to the implementation stage. Create a Content Posting Schedule that will arrange the list of all different types of content you have in stock and spread it among the weekdays. Personally, I prefer using a Google Sheet for organization. That way, your client and other people you work with can easily follow the schedule and stay up-to-date with the content plan. Content should be diverse to stay engaging, so a social media guru makes sure to share at least two of the below-listed content types each day:

• Informative
• Promotional
• Entertaining

Don’t hesitate to share posts from other pages from time to time. Good relevant content won’t hurt unless your client’s brand has a big name. Your client might be worried about using scheduling automation platforms such as Buffer or Hootsuite at first, but this is just one more tool that will help you and your client to save time and energy for other tasks as well.

Act with Ownership

Acting with ownership separates a good social media guru from a great one. Don’t have your client buy software and monthly subscriptions in situations where you can do fine with the free version. Every time you find a new tool that promises to ease your task, try to calculate its ROI and decide if the business will really benefit from the purchase. Remember, you are hired to help to grow a startup into a large company, and this won’t happen if you don’t question every expense.

Make that small extra effort to perform better than expected. Try to bring new ideas and suggestions to the table – maybe you can help with new client acquisition via one of your Facebook page’s features or turn Messenger into an inexpensive but effective alternative to customer support software. A social media guru is always on the lookout for ways to boost clients’ business through the available social tools.

Be a Social Media Guru

Once you master the above specified minimum necessary skillset to succeed in this profession, the time will come to improvise and try new creative ways to reach more of your target audiences. Be brave and follow the market trends – within your Budget limits of course! The social media guru is always up-to-date and testing out new strategies to stay on the cutting edge of this rapidly-changing field.

If you have any questions about becoming a social media guru, post them in the comments – let’s socialize!

Naira obtained her MBA and worked for a multinational company as the Country Marketing Projects Manager. After working on digital campaigns, she developed a passion for SMM. She has been working on growing her career in SMM ever since.