As a business owner, are you spending your precious time on social media marketing that could be better spent growing your business?
Probably!
Is social media marketing important?
Absolutely! It’s critical!
Does that mean that you should be managing it?
Heck no! In fact, it’s probably a terrible use of your time.
Being a business owner means wearing a lot of hats. From sales to management, to product/service delivery to accounts receivable and payable, the work never stops. You’re the person with the big vision who needs to push your business forward. Getting bogged down with nitty gritty daily tasks is a time killer—and it can be a business killer, too.
Pro Tip #1
The first piece of advice that I give to every small business owner is this: get an assistant. I truly believe that everyone should have their own virtual assistant to help with administrative tasks. It was the first step that I took when I was ready to move forward with Barker Social and it’s the best move I could have made. Having our superstar project coordinator, Laura, on our team has increased my own productivity tenfold!
Pro Tip #2
The second thing that I recommend is outsourcing specialized tasks to experts whenever possible. Working on projects outside of your skill set is a definite ticket to reducing your business’ overall productivity. Savvy leadership and good business sense means knowing when to hire people to do the jobs they’re good at and then leveraging those people’s skills to scale your business output.
A clear example of this is accounting. Unless you have an accounting background, you’re going to spend way too much of your valuable time attending to the accounting needs of your business. Sure, you could probably do it… but should you do it? What might you be neglecting while you’re tied up?
Your Time Is a Hot Commodity
The same absolutely goes for social media marketing. Social media is a necessity for every contemporary business, but that doesn’t mean that managing it yourself is a good use of your time. Are you wasting time trying to manage ad-hoc Facebook updates yourself? What about Twitter updates? (Or worse, maybe you’re neglecting social media marketing altogether?)
Apply Your Unique Strengths Where They Really Count
Business owners and leaders often have the inclination to do everything themselves. Owning a small business, however, doesn’t automatically make you a marketing expert. You might find the idea of doing your own social media marketing fun, but are you able to design and execute a comprehensive marketing strategy? What about monitor results and analytics over time to ensure that what you’re doing is working? And what about making sure that you’re getting the best return on your time and advertising investment?
Maybe you’ve decided to just slip in some social media updates when you have time, but not so fast—did you know that being consistent is one of the top rules of social media marketing that gets results? If you’re not a marketer with an established social media methodology, it’s going to take you five times longer than someone who really knows what they’re doing.
(And even though I highly recommend that you get a virtual assistant, chances are, your administrative assistant won’t be a marketing expert, either.)
Even if you’re really great with your social media, you don’t have to—and shouldn’t—take on your marketing alone.
Effective Social Media Marketing Takes Time & Dedication
Trying to keep up with ever-changing digital marketing trends isn’t realistic. Unless you spend all day reading sales blogs, trying out new social media platforms, and interpreting Google’s labyrinthine Page Rank system, you’ll fall behind on the latest marketing best practices. Even if you did your research and put a great strategy in place a year ago, we can almost guarantee that it’s now out of date and won’t be nearly as effective as it once may have been.
It’s not just that an outdated strategy is less effective; a stale campaign can possibly even drive customers away.
You can write a Facebook post, but do you know how to gauge its effectiveness? How does it compare to your other Facebook posts? What about that thing you shared on Twitter last week? Is your Instagram feed reaching the right demographic? And which (if any) of these tools are turning casual readers into paying customers?
Results-Driven Marketing
Luckily, those of us who specialize in marketing are dedicated to keeping up with the evolving trends and measuring results. Effectively collecting, comparing, and calculating marketing analytics makes the difference between a potent marketing strategy and a load of wasted time and money.
It takes specialized knowledge to implement processes that include writing winning copy, crafting custom branded visuals, leveraging the latest technology, and analyzing key performance indicators to consistently improve your marketing and achieve the best return on investment.
Where Should YOU Be Focusing?
When you’re an entrepreneur, your focus is on YOUR business. You know it well. You’re already responsible for developing and maintaining the strategy for your overall business plan. Keeping up with all the minutia of marketing is yet another heavy hat—but it’s one you don’t have to wear. Outsourcing enlists the help of experts that will not only help you develop an effective plan but will remove the burden of you having to implement it.
Free Consultation
And by the way, outsourcing your marketing isn’t just effective, it’s also affordable. Why not take us up on the offer of a free consultation? We’ll take a look at your existing marketing plan and make suggestions of how you can push your business to the next level.
