Running social media remotely - can it work?

© Unsplash.com.

Here are three things you can do to make running social media remotely, a connected success.

First - make sure you have a marketing plan

With a business vision your remote team will:

• be clearer directed 
• be able to deliver to your business goals 
• create content that is of value to your customers

Your marketing plan should detail:

• audience reach goals for social media
• communication – key messaging themes
• social media platforms to be used

Second – be clear on your social media budget

Creating beautiful engaging content is a craft that costs money. Being clear on your budget for social media production and social media advertising means you can guide your remote team on your social media requirements.

Consider:

• More content, more craft, more money. Social media platforms serve different engagement purposes. Ideally different content needs to be created for the different platforms. Some content tweaking can happen but first prize to have unique content across the different platforms. So different content will live on Facebook to Instagram to Twitter to LinkedIn. This means 4 x sets of content across the 4 platforms needs to be created. Depending on your budget you could pick 1 or 2 platforms as your initial essential platforms and then grow your platforms as business and sales grow.
• Online tools license costs. Scheduling, reporting and task management tools enable work flow success so include these in your budget. 
• Stock image fees. If you have exhausted the free image library resources you might want to consider a paid for stock image subscription.
• Photography fees. Sharing live content directly from an event works well, as do product shots to showcase your range, just make sure you have budgeted for it.

Third - find the best blend of production skills

Social media is the sum of many talents; make sure your remote team boasts these skills:

Content creation
Those beautiful images you see on Facebook with a company logo subtly placed on it with an attention-grabbing-headline – takes time to produce. Creating great social media content requires great copywriting skills and design skills.

A content creator:

• researches online for content inspiration 
• trawls through brand material for content ideas
• is up to speed on your marketing plan and marketing initiatives which influence the content being created
• sources images from image stock libraries
• references a brand guide to ensure correct CI is being followed
• writes awesome copy and writes different copy for the different social media platforms 
• creates design layouts 
• provides direction for any motion graphic work required
• understands the latest social media platform capabilities
• completes a content calendar of all the posts for the given month

It isn’t always easy to find a content creator who is a copywriter, digital designer and can do motion graphics. Sometimes this role is split across 3 different people.

Community manager
If you practice agile principles in your business you will know that the number one priority is to satisfy the customer.
A community manager:

• responds eloquently and fast to community questions
• proofreads all content
• schedules all of the social media content using an online content scheduling tool
• monitors stats and creates suggestions of how to adapt content and content scheduling 
• finds suitable partner content to share
• understands the latest social media platform capabilities
• creates a monthly report

Advertising manager
Not all of your social media content will be seen by your fans and followers. You can maximise your content by advertising in order to grow your audience reach.
An advertising media manager:

• is up to date on all the social media advertising options and what will work best based on your content goals
• uploads advertising to the various social media advertising platforms 
• optimises the advertising campaigns to bring you the best bang for your buck

Agile team lead
Workflow momentum and team interaction are the ingredients needed for a collective success. An agile team leader ‘holds the fort’ so that you get to focus more on your business and less in your business.

An agile team lead:

• keeps the social team focused by facilitating remote stand-ups
• keeps the team reminded of the daily tasks and deadlines
• makes sure the team is aligned with the social media goals and “ways of working” (company values, CRM, Slack, Skype, etc.)
• motivates and encourages team which enables the team to shoot and score! 
• pulls in the right people to help iron out a problem
• ensures that necessary conversations happen to find ways to fix things that are broken or close to broken.