So you’ve got a new freelancer working on your socials, and the stats look like magic in month one. Here’s where I want you to add a bit of realism to your expectations for month two and set a better goal.
You see, before you took on your new Social Media Manager (freelancer or in-house), you lacked consistency, structure, and above all, data listening.
As a result, it was hard to attribute social performance to marketing improvements.
That’s why you hired your SMM.
During their first month, your new team member has had to learn something about your business and your voice, while experimenting with posting and listening to your audience.
In most cases, just posting more often can boost the numbers, but this gives a false sense of alignment with what you really want from social performance.
Your Social Media Manager’s future success depends on several things:
Firstly, their experience with the basics: Understanding something of the algorithms and optimising their use of the features of each app.
Hopefully they've got that under control; unless you deliberately opted for entry-level in your hiring process, then you need to account for that.
Secondly, the engagement state of your existing audience. For example, a semi-engaged audience is much more likely to increase engagement with basic tweaks to existing content buckets.
Thirdly, their access to your team, especially sales. This will give them a clear line of sight on how they can work with people to get the most out of content that already exists in your business, plus a deeper understanding of how sales happen.
Then, their workload and KPIs. If they are creating and posting at max or have a constantly changing goal, then it might be hard to get more out of the process.
And finally, but most importantly, what your social performance goals really are as a business. Not vanity metrics, but the metrics that matter (could be website clicks, sales or something else).
So what should month two with your SMM look like?
Month two is where you need to sit down with your SMM: What have they learned, and what does the data tell you both?
Does that align with what you really need?
Drawing a line in the sand as a benchmark and redefining what you need your socials to do going forward will be your best next step.
This is often where I see business owners' crests fall. They expect the magic to continue without defining their intention.
But. If you don’t have alignment, even magical performance won’t serve you in the end.
What performance going forward should you expect?
In months two, three and four, you may see social stats fluctuate or settle out. Some might even dip. This is about experimenting and adjusting content to serve your business better.
Across the year you might also see seasonal dips. This is where the data starts to show you important patterns and real wins will start to shine.
Learn to replicate and repurpose the higher performing pieces. This should give you a stronger performance.
I hope that helps.
If you’d like to chat about improving your social media approach, drop me a line.
Sara x
