For our last #SMTLive Twitter chat, we caught up with 65+ social media managers around the world to talk about what it is like managing a brand's social media presence -- the ups, the downs and their biggest challenges.
Right off the bat we asked the group how large of a support team they had on the job. We were intrigued (but not completely shocked) to see that 40 of the 65 respondents (62%) said they were manning the ship all on their own.
To get started, here is a Q to help us understand what types of social media managers are joining in today's chat. Q1: How many people make up your social media team? #SMTLive
— Social Media Today (@socialmedia2day) February 26, 2019
Most of us know how that feels. In fact, during our previous Twitter chat "Juggling Multiple Social Media Accounts", we spoke with someone managing 40+ social media accounts all on her own.
Regardless of the size of your team, we all face various challenges on the job. Here are a few of the biggest challenges we hear social media managers face daily.
7 Biggest Challenges of Social Media Management
1. Finding time for everything
A3: TIME + Balancing quanity with quality - do we autoschedule tweets and posts to help with volume/coverage? Or hand-craft fewer but more custom posts for each channel? Oof ???? #SMTlive
— Robin Selvy Re (@RobinSelvy) February 26, 2019
A3
— Phoebe McPherson (@pnmcpherson) February 26, 2019
Hours in the day — hands down.
It's just me, and I'm juggling multiple brand guidelines, voices, etc. everyday (like most SMM peeps). That means sometimes I can only organically engage with so many people on Twitter, create so much content, put out so many fires
#smtlive pic.twitter.com/XhvdWFbDqi
2. Creating fresh and meaningful content for each audience
A3: Feeding the content monster ???? Always producing content for multiple channels is a challenge #SMTLive
— Hans Kullin (@kullin) February 26, 2019
A3: For me, the most challenging part of SM management is thinking of new content. It's so easy to repeat types of content (e.g. posting about industry-specific news every other day) but not so easy to curate new and 'out of the box' content - Rhianna #smtlive @socialmedia2day
— Oleso (@olesosocial) February 26, 2019
3. Getting executive or client approval
A3: getting clients fully on board - convincing them that it's about being 'social' not selling, that a half-hearted approach won't work and that results can take time #SMTLive
— Socially Sound (@MySociallySound) February 26, 2019
Yes! Internal agreement, appeasement can be a huge part of the day-to-day if the company doesn't have 100% social media buy-in, too. #SMTlive
— Phoebe McPherson (@pnmcpherson) February 26, 2019
4. Having great ideas but a lack of resources
IMAGES! We don't have in-house graphic design, and our SM team isn't large enough to attend every event/occasion in person to take the right pics/vids. Finding multimedia that fits the specs, is on-brand, high quality, etc. is my biggest challenge #SMTLive
— Jaclyn ???????? (@jaclyn613) February 26, 2019
5. Switching up the voice and tone for different channels
I agree totally! My work sites vary from campgrounds, marina, historic sites to a penitentiary that offers tours, so creating brand voices is key! #SMTLive
— Rosalyn Gambhir (@rosalyngambhir) February 26, 2019
6. Simply developing a strong and distinct voice
A3: I'm in publishing and I find it's difficult to create a unique "voice" that stands out from the crowd of other publishers, without simply using pull quotes from the articles we share. I don't want my brand's social feed to be just another content factory. #SMTLive
— Jess (@JessRunsHappy) February 26, 2019
7. Tracking progress
Tracking engagement and conversion using a single tool #socialmedia #smm #SocialMediaManagement
— akshata fernando (@akshatafernando) February 27, 2019
There are a myriad of obstacles the job can throw our way, but seven these stand out as a few of the most common challenges a social media manager can face.