If you don’t live and work on social media as we do, you may not appreciate the incredible value of social media marketing and the reasons that, as a CEO or marketing lead, you should be proficient enough to discern good social media marketing from bad.

Why is this such a challenge? Because everybody thinks they know how to “do social media” since they have their own personal social media accounts. In reality, you should never, ever run your organization’s social media like a personal account unless you’re actively looking for trouble. There’s so much more to it than most people realize.

As professional social media marketers, an educated client is our best client because they understand what it takes to get results. Here are a few things you, as CEO or marketing lead, should know about social media.

Your social media marketing may run amok.

Companies that delegate social media work to their lowest-ranking comms team member, or worse, the intern, simply don’t get it. Social media is powerful, and doing it wrong can have marketing consequences.

In just one example, if you don’t understand why social media marketers are taking their clients off of Twitter during these early Elon Musk ownership days, keep reading.

It matters where your brand shows up and how it shows up, and as a marketer, the last thing you need is your social content showing up above a post with Nazi or racist images.

Environment matters! If you wouldn’t advertise your company in a poorly-published gossip rag full of lies, why would you put your branded digital content on a social channel that is at risk of becoming a similar editorial environment?

Your social media will be a wasted effort.

Handing your social media MARKETING over to someone who isn’t a social media marketing SPECIALIST isn’t a great way to take advantage of a powerful medium. Social can move the numbers on sales, sign-ups, donations, volunteers, and other actions you’d like your target audience to take.

Our client roster has given us so many examples of how social moves consumers into action, including these few examples:

• >  Raising $25,000 in 30 days through a community fundraising initiative
• >  Staffing up for the new school year with 100 new applications in one month for a charter school
• >  Enticing listeners to a new podcast in the automotive industry
• >  Increasing inquiries for trade school enrollment
• >  Driving traffic to a new future mobility initiative website targeting automotive engineers
• >  Inspiring people to volunteer to be tested as a match for a patient needing a kidney donation

Yep, we got 25+ people to consider donating one of their organs using social media! It’s that powerful.

It’s deeper than you think.

Social media marketing goes deeper than a recent marketing grad may be able to understand early in their career. However, results are inevitable when you rely on a social team possessing a depth of understanding of marketing and social media. So why pay a newbie to do something the professionals should be doing? It’s a waste of money and frustrating when they don’t get results. 

You’ll look like a failure. Or worse, a noob

I recently saw a CEO post something about her company on LinkedIn and was shocked at the level of failure. I know this sounds harsh. However, her company is in the digital marketing space, so it seems like a great example of how awkward it can be when social media isn’t given the respect it deserves by CEOs and marketing leaders. 

This executive had posted a poorly-filtered screen grab of the post that had appeared on her agency’s page earlier that week. It looked strange, with the graphic distorted and difficult to read. It didn’t convey that she, or her shop, knew much about social media. Not a good look for the top leader of a digital marketing agency.

It made me realize that many leaders don’t give social media the attention they should to be able to move appropriately in the space. 

Don’t Miss Out!

Come on, leaders! You’re missing out! It’s not as simple as you think. “Just throw something up there” is never a good approach. Instead, spend time on various channels, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, until you understand the basics. They are all different and have specific and unique advantages. 

And please, please don’t leave your organization’s social media marketing effort to someone who doesn’t have experience. It’s a sure way to ensure your ROI for the effort will be dismal. 

We can help. Get in touch with us here on our Contact Page.

Photo by Slim Emcee on Unsplash