Case Study No.4 – Social Media
Intro:
Managing social media profiles is a common request many clients have. However, it’s much more than just posting a few topics or finding clients. Depending on the platform a VA may analyse, report and even create the content for you. Here I will go into 3 different types of client work I’ve conducted, what I helped them with and how it benefited them and created real value.
The clients:
Due to the nature of this case study, I will cover an amalgamation of clients, from social media/ marketing consultants to founders/ business owners and lastly, keynote speakers/ mentors/ coaches.
What I help with:
– Social media management
Out of the 3 here, this is the most common. There are numerous platforms to help with this such as Hootsuite, Buffer and Sprout Social. Some are free whilst others are paid for and often have more advanced features.
Though they are all fairly quick to pick up and use, I’ve mainly used Hootsuite as on the free version you can manage 3 social profiles at once. These are normally LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook – sometimes Instagram as well depending on the clients business.
Quick tip – If your product is visual in any way you should 100% use Instagram – fitness, food, travel, cosmetics and anything creative are some examples.
The great thing about these tools is they allow you to schedule posts across multiple platforms at the same time, saving you considerable effort. I wouldn’t recommend doing more than 1 weeks worth of posts as a lot happens in a week and you need to be responsive to global events/ changes (eg Covid19/ Blacklivesmatter), otherwise, you could be seen as insensitive and lose clients/ followers.
– LinkedIn/ Sales Navigator
Prospecting – a very normal task to outsource so you can focus on actually working with clients rather than spending hours finding them.
This could include some of the below areas:
– Saves additional leads and accounts that you want to monitor weekly
– Using Spotlight to find prospects more likely to engage with you
– Leave notes to remember important details for yourself eg Mary loves wine from…
– View similar prospects and report weekly
– Send InMail to leads using the template the client outlines – check profile and find relevant content for them – I normally average 10 minutes per prospect.
– Social media analysing
So fun thing – in my previous role at GlobalData I was looking at data every minute of the day for clients. Though my job wasn’t to analyse it I often had to just so they could understand it. One of my clients even referenced me as a strategic analyst!
Anywho most clients, if they are doing any sort of social media posting/ marketing, will be analysing the results and have a tool to do so. They are fairly straightforward to learn (some examples are Buffer, Quintly, Cyfe) and typically my clients focus on a few key metrics to track ROI.
Note: this can also be relevant to social media ads as well.
These are:
– Awareness:
these metrics illuminate your current and potential audience.
– Engagement:
these metrics show how audiences are interacting with your content.
– Conversion:
these metrics demonstrate the effectiveness of your social engagement.
– Consumer:
these metrics reflect how active customers think and feel about your brand.
There are numerous ways to keep track of these and make sure they are aligning to your objectives. A great article on the matter is from Hootsuite – here
Generally, based on the client’s preferences I will deliver weekly/ bi-weekly/ monthly analysis reports for them to review and see if any changes need to be made.
Often when I’m brought on board it’s to help facilitate a testing period to see what works and doesn’t – due to this being a common occurrence I’m quite adept at analysing results and making suggestions based on previous work with clients.
How what I do helps them:
– Time
More often than not my clients simply do not have the time to or need to learn how to complete these tasks. They only need to lay out the plan and let me know what wheels I need to start spinning in motion. This means they can focus on spending more time formulating strategies, writing proposals/ presentations and most importantly spending time with their clients.
– Repeated work
As I often complete these tasks I learn how to do them very effectively and the way clients like to have them presented. As they share any useful information with me it gives me insights into the strategies they use allowing me to present my work to them in a way they like. Normally after the first few tasks, they are fully confident in my abilities and how I can best support them with their responsibilities.
– Personal interest
Personally, I have a great interest in social media as it’s literally where I get all my business from. With this in mind, I am always keen to see how I can help my clients with their current strategies and let them know of changes in the industry. For example, I mentioned in my previous Marketing Case Study that video was going to be massive. Now LinkedIn is currently testing stories which will be short stories of peoples businesses/ personal lives which I imagine will be mainly in the video context. By keeping up to date with the latest trends I can inform my clients and make sure they are fully aware of anything they need to adapt.
– Nature of the role
Being in this position allows me to have a significant amount of knowledge for me to use from one client to another. I can often find best practices, allowing me more time to review my work and make sure it is in line with the client’s expectations.
– Due to my analytic background
In my previous role, I was often referred to as a data scientist due to my way of analysing results and interpreting them differently. This allows me to apply my own opinion which the clients can review, thus saving them time and also providing an alternate perspective to use with their clients.
As you can probably tell I really enjoy doing these tasks for clients so if you feel like I could help you with any of this type of work or just making sure admin is in order please feel free to send me an email to oliver@olivera28.sg-host.com
P.S All my client’s details will be confidential as they are not always comfortable with their customers knowing they sometimes require additional help.