Social media has become a powerhouse for marketing and spreading the word about your brand. So, how do you make sure you have a great team that can uphold the pressures of creating content while also being able to stay up on trends and topics that will resonate with your audience?
In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the top ways you can decide how to create a social media team that will help you rise to the top AND stay there. Take a look at what some of our experts had to say on the topic:
Examine Your Current Situation (SWOT)
Before you even start outlining a job post or thinking about what you’re looking for in a social media team, you need to examine your current situation. What does your current social media strategy reflect? Is it performing well? Are you looking for a team that can improve what you’ve started or will they do a complete overhaul? What does your budget look like?
“Like with any business decision or change you plan to implement, you need to know where you stand before planning anything else,” says Phillip Akhzar, CEO of Arka. “Start with a SWOT analysis of your social media accounts to get a feeling for what you’re going to look for in a team. What are you doing well? What are your weaknesses? Where can you improve? What threats exist?”
“Take a look at your brand and compare it to the brands similar to your own,” says Michael Ayjian, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of 7 Wonders Cinema. “Figure out what you like about your current social media strategy and what you’d want to improve. How are you going to stand out from the competition while still competing for a similar audience? Knowing these things before you get started can help in having a clear view of what is important to you in the long run.”
Look at Your Company’s Goals – Not their “now”
Social media is something that is constantly growing and changing – so looking at your goals for right now and not for the future can be a major downfall in planning for a social media team. If your team is great at keeping you where you’re at, you’ll never reach those future goals.
“Step back and look at the overall goal of your brand,” says Zach Goldstein, CEO of Public Rec. “What are your aspirations and goals? Is that something that your current social media team is contributing to? If not, you may want to prioritize reaching those goals when looking into hiring more staff or retraining your current social media team.”
Determine what team roles would look like
Having a social media team is great, but unless everyone has a role, you may end up with a very lateral approach to your social media strategies. Develop a holistic approach to social media goals by hiring a diverse staff that have skill sets and experience in different areas of social media management and content creation.
“You may have a team of people that are great at what they do, but if they’re all good at the same thing, you may not reach your goals or the audience you want to make an impact on,” says Jae Pak, Founder of Jae Pak MD Medical. “If everyone on the team is doing a similar job, why do you need a team to start with? Make sure your team has a variety of skills and knowledge that will work together to make your brand stand out on a variety of social platforms.”
“Break down the leadership and day-to-day ideas for how this social media team would function,” says Jean Gregoire, Founder and CEO of Lovebox. “Having an understanding of what you want to accomplish before you start hiring a team or even posting the jobs can help you decide what you’re looking for in each member of the team. Do you need someone with graphic design skills? What about experience using DSLR cameras to capture content? These are things that you’ll need outlined for functionality and efficiency so it’s best to do this before you even start forming your team.”
Outline Skills for Job Descriptions
As mentioned by Tyler Read, Founder and Senior Editor of Personal Trainer Pioneer, it can be helpful to have a grasp on the job requirements. If you’ve made it through the previous step and now have a good idea of the number of team members you need along with their daily responsibilities, you can start creating the job descriptions. When hiring for a social media team, it’s important to hold strong on the required skills and experiences that are listed in these descriptions to make sure you do end up with that rock star social media team.
“A good job description and list of required skills or experience can really make your job easier,” says Sean Doherty, GM of Box Genie. “While you want to attract applicants, you want to make sure you’re attracting the RIGHT applicants. Make sure you’re using the right keywords, phrases, and job position titles to make sure the right people find your posting.”
“I think it’s stressed for applicants that they need to make sure their resumes and application materials are up to snuff, but it’s equally as important that an employer sets the standard by posting a job description that is clear and specific about what they’re looking for,” says Karim Hachem, VP of eCommerce of Maxine of Hollywood. “If you’re vague about the experience level or have a broad range of ‘preferred but not required’ skills, you’re going to end up with an extensive and frustrating interview process that may leave you tempted to hire a less than qualified applicant to move past the interviewing process.”
Conclusion
In conclusion, building a rock star social media team is not a light job. It’s something that will take time, effort, and careful consideration. As stated by several of our brand representatives above, the perfect social media team requires a lot of components that can’t be thrown together without considering the goal of your brand, an understanding of the team’s logistics, and a well thought out application process.
Ensuring you understand why you need an improved social media team is the first step. What are you looking to do better at? Also, evaluating your brand through a SWOT analysis can be enlightening and bring some new ideas to the table.
Whether you’re looking to create a team from scratch or restructure a current team, having a solid outline of responsibilities and job descriptions can put you on the path to success. Ideally, this path will lead you to the goals that the brand has set as a whole. Take a look at that previously mentioned SWOT analysis and use that to outline the things your team needs in a social media team.
Above all, make sure you are staying true to your brand. With the ever-changing nature of social media, it can be easy to lose sight of a brand’s identity in an effort to stay ‘trendy’ or ‘relevant’.
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