Day In the Life- Social Media Manager and Her Tools
I hate the term social media manager. Anyone who has gotten 100 friends on Facebook seems to feel comfortable with calling themselves one, and it’s a very far cry from the actual work social media involves.
So today I want to share with you, what it’s like to be a social media manager for a day, it isn’t for the faint of heart.
Good morning! It’s time to check Email. This is the first stop to answer potential clients, existing clients, take care of comments etc.
This usually takes a good 20 minutes (longer if I haven’t been able to keep it cleaned up lately).
Client Website: Before I jump into the social aspect, I visit each clients’ website to see if there is any new content to share. If there is, it is implemented into each piece below, by doing the following:
- Getting an image to share for Facebook & Google+
- Making a pinnable image for Pinterest with Pinwords
- Getting the link to share on each network
- Using SavePublishing I Buffer several tweets for Twitter
Pop over to Facebook to check on all accounts. Here is what I do for each of them.
- Immediately check notifications- answer likes, comments and messages
- Go to newsfeed and share an item
- Comment on 2-3 updates from the industry (for exposure)
- Go back to their fanpage and schedule out posts for the day (2-3) including images, links, mentions, hashtags, etc- Use Likealyzer to see when is the best time for post
- One last check to make sure I haven’t missed any notifications (during the time I’ve been there) and I’m off
Now I run over to Twitter and log into each account
- I immediately check Connections to respond to mentions, retweets, and tweets from their websites
- I follow back any new followers (as long as there aren’t any spammers who I ignore)
- Then I go to Discover to see if there is anyone new to follow that looks interesting for the client
- From here I go to Hootsuite
- Visit Nimble for client to make sure any potential leads are catered to
Next stop: Linkedin
- Check to make sure each company page has any new updates from the client websites
- Read updates from other users
- Comment on 2-3 updates
- Share 1 update (like, etc)
- Select a few groups to visit and comment on a few posts to participate
- Check for any new connection requests and respond appropriately or send the client a summary email of who and what
- I also check Who’s Viewed My Profile, and connect or use this information in the summary email as well
- I visit groups and look for groups to join, discussions to participate in, and people to connect with also send in email
- Visit FiveHundredPlus to follow up with any connections we are working on
Going, going, going to Google+
- Check notifications for each client and respond to any of them
- Comment on other people’s posts atleast 2-3
- Visit a community and comment
- Schedule an update with a photo
- Share someone’s post
- Add client to a circle- find circles with Circle Count
- Like a few peoples’ posts
- Visit later in the day to respond to other posts again (comment, share, plus)
Pumped up for Pinterest– One of my personal favorite stops
- Visit home feed for each client
- Respond to notifications if there are any
- Follow 3-5 new people or boards- I use
- Repin at least 3 items to different boards
- Comment on at least 2 pins
- Visit later in the day to pin atleast 2 more items
Curation from Feedly– prior to this I’ve collected at least 20 blogs for each client’s industry and added their Twitter & Linkedin to Bufferapp.
Read through each clients’ Feedly account and look for posts to share
When I find a post:
- Buffer to Twitter &/or Linkedin
- use mentions and hashtags
- Do Share to G+
- hashtags
- Pin to Pinterest (Pin bookmarklet)
- Fill up for the next 24 hours or more
Once all of this is through, I swing back in to email, and recheck for notifications.
As a social media manager, there is a lot to do. What would you add to my list, what would you skip, and what tools would you use as well?
Great post! I have never referred to myself as a social media manager even though that is a lot of what I do. We are part of the marketing department for whatever company hires us. In some cases, we may be the entire marketing department.
I also love how you broke down what you do. This is great for other social media managers to learn from…
Thanks Mike,
Glad you enjoyed the post. I think it’s nice to be considered part of the company that hires you, but what do you call yourself otherwise? To people you meet, etc?
Mary
I meet the majority of my clients through networking. And when I meet someone for the first time I am more interested in who they are and what they do. So most times, I play down what I do. There’s a few reasons for this. First, I honestly want to know what they do. Second, what I do can be fairly confusing to folks and hard to explain in a sentence or two. So I usually tell people I am an internet marketer who helps local businesses get more customers from their online marketing efforts. Then I shift the conversation right back to them. Once I build a relationship with them, it becomes much easier to talk about what I do.
That’s a great idea Mike. To be honest most of the people I come in contact with already know what I do. It isn’t because I’m popular or anything but maybe I just put it out there too much. I will definitely put more thought into this. If family asks what I do I say: “I help companies with Facebook and sites like that.” But I don’t meet a lot of people who can’t right click my name and follow a link. Definitely thinking now though. Thank you. 🙂
Great article! My official title is Social Media Consultant, but I find I do a lot more than “consulting!” 🙂 It’s a fun job for me, so it is not much like work. Thanks for sharing the tools you use- I may be using some of them to streamline my posting! Thanks again!
Glad you liked the post Kim, thank you so much for visiting and if you have any suggestions for future blog posts, let me know.
I really enjoyed this post Mary. I work in social media as well, but I find myself migrating towards content strategy. My day is usually fragmented, so this really helps streamline it and actually sell it better to clients in a more cohesive way!
Here’s a site you may really enjoy, if you haven’t already discovered it 🙂 http://contently.com/
Have a great holiday!