What to provide a social media person

A social media person should be able to advise on the best social media channels to use to reach your target audience and to develop a content plan and content designed to engage you target audience and take action that you want them to take as a result of seeing your content.

They should be able to evaluate the impact of any activity carried out.

It's unlikely a work experience student would be able to do this and you may not have the skills to direct them on how to do this.

Why not hire an experienced local freelance to do this or you're likely to waste any investment you make.

tony84 said:

But I suppose what I wanted to know was those of you who have had social media people to do work, what is the process? Is there a meeting and if so what do you discuss?

I thought I could maybe do a similar sort of meeting, maybe lead it a little for them but something that would help them when they go out there in the real world.

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Happy to answer social media related questions as this is part of our marketing suite of services.

Every creative project begins with a brief from the client, the brief includes all existing brand/visual/content assets, details about your business, target market, catchment areas, your competition, your mission/vision/values and any other important and pivotal data/information related to your business and the project.

Although it's important to mention, some clients do not know what they want, or how to write down what's in their head in a brief, so some agencies (including us) offer a FREE consultation and the brief is done together during that meeting.

The agency then audits the business, either a surface level and quick, 1 hour "digital landscape audit" or a deep and comprehensive audit which includes competitor analysis, audience research, market research etc, this is more suited for large budgets or as a paid add-on.

Then come the discovery session(s), again, depending on the budgets and scope this can be a single session done on the phone or multiple ones done in-person and again, depending on the scope and budgets, the discovery session(s) are either included in the cost of the marketing package or as a separate paid service.

Then comes the proposal, everything we learned in the brief and discovery feeds into it, including what we'll measure and the success metrics.

Once the proposal is approved then we enter the contracting phase, once the contracts are signed and the financial side has been taken care of, then delivery of the social media assets begins, followed by measuring and reporting, reporting follows on the schedule agreed in the proposal and against the success metrics defined there.

As mentioned, this is usually the process for any creative project done with an agency or a solo professional, every project must begin with a thorough understanding, followed by comprehensive planning, sound strategising, and improved/refined through consistent and honest reporting, no magic sauce or hocus pocus lol, just common sense.

tony84 said:

When I started as a broker, I passed my exams, did some training on systems and was told off I go.

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Broker is not really something for Instagram nor Facebook.
The neighborhood consists pretty much of the cheating kind.

Having social networks for years is more important now as they figure prominently in SERP.

So no one should abandon their channels. But new ones I wouldn't open for a broker. There are more convenient ways to do marketing,

NickZ said:

Broker is not really something for Instagram nor Facebook.

But new ones I wouldn't open for a broker. There are more convenient ways to do marketing,

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I believe he was using his past experience as a broker as an example, he's not looking for marketing brokers.

tony84 said:

The conversion rate for us was 0%. I am not using social media to generate business. The person we had historically was good, but lets be honest, if its not cupcakes or something tangible, social media is not ideal.

It is more as a way to build up trust and show we are a genuine reputable company etc. Our social media recently has posts about the local duck race where we entered a duck for example Nothing even mortgage related, more things tying us to the local area.

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That's the right perspective to have when it comes to social media marketing in the mortgage industry, your goals should be related to brand-building rather than lead generation.

Impulse buys in the mortgage industry are non existent. People spend months, sometimes years making their decision, it's an industry driven mainly by referrals, trust, and various financial metrics, so a 0% conversion from Instagram or Facebook doesn't necessarily mean a failed social media campaign.

The duck race post is exactly the kind of thing that works for your industry. You're not trying to directly sell a mortgage via your posts, instead you're making sure that when someone locally thinks "we need a mortgage advisor" you're the business that comes to mind.

This is why understanding marketing funnels and creating a content mix based on strategy rather than improvising is always the right approach, you don't have to outsource it, you just have to add some thought to it and not do it for the sake of doing it.

Lots of people in China are talking about social‑media marketing these days, but does it actually work?

xiazhi56 said:

Lots of people in China are talking about social‑media marketing these days, but does it actually work?

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It is possible but it is not the rule. 1st: Social media is not a sales mechanism, people go into social media to be entertained, the social media reach is much smaller than the www . If you have a shop and publish products, your followers are clients, friends, friends of friends and know you also sell over your shop, surely that is promising.