Should You Let A Family Member Handle Your Social Media Marketing?

It’s a question that many small businesses ask themselves in the desire to save a little bit of the marketing budget on the launch phase for business

There are perceived benefits of doing so

* Cost Savings – you don’t have to pay for a Social Media Agency like us
* You live with them – you can chat to them from 7am-11pm
* Family – surely won’t let us down

The reality of course is

* Cost Savings – Does anybody really do a great job when they’re not being compensated for it
* You live with them – but how often do they go awol
* Family – how many times have those closest to you let you down

Let’s look at those vital questions you should be asking a family member before considering taking them on to run the social media

1. What marketing experience do you have?
Little jimmy spending all day on his phone makes him no more a marketing expert than myself putting in oven chips makes me a gourmet chef

Social Media is a marketing function and therefore the person running your social media should have some degree of marketing and business experience

They should understand Customer Profiling, SWOT Analysis, USP, Competitor Analysis, Visual Branding, Copywriting, Analytics, Cost / Benefit Analysis etc

They should be able talk at length about these and many more areas of marketing

They should have had some track record and experience of marketing in a previous role

Importantly they should be able to explain in layman’s terms – we are doing X because of Y to reach Z market and the results should be ABC

The waters are often muddied a little with Social Media by the omission of the word marketing at the end of it … and the fact that Admins and Virtual PA’s offering Social Media can lead to people thinking social media is an admin function rather than a marketing function

Your 1st priority for Social Media is that the person running it should understand marketing

2. How much time can you commit to Social Media?
How much time do you believe is needed to commit fully to Social Media?

5 mins a day? 30 mins a week? 1 hour a week?

Try at least 30 minutes a day 7 Days a week and you’re close to how much time you should spend creating content, posting, engaging, building audiences

So how much time does your family member have to commit around college, university or work? Can they genuinely set aside 30 minutes a day to Social Media

3. Are you switched on 24 / 7 to Social Media?
Social Media never switches off

Your customers can contact you morning, noon and night

Social Media is about your customer’s convenience and schedule rather than your own

So are you able to commit to social media in the middle of your day job / uni? Are you able to commit to social media on a night out? Are you able to commit to social media at weekends?

4. Have you got long term commitment?

Is our businesses Social Media something you can commit to ongoing for months or years?

If you agree to run our social media will you get bored after a couple of weeks and then leave the accounts dormant?

The latter questions is something that happens all the time when social media gets handed to a family member as they massively underestimate the amount of time you need to get social media accounts up running and active

People need to look at the long term commitment and whether anything might get in the way from exams to job promotions that might hinder the social media in the future

5. What will happen to our social media if you faced a personal crisis?

What would happen if you had an argument with your partner? Split up with your boyfriend / girlfriend? A fallout with a close friend? A bereavement?

Personal crisis’s happen all the time and if it’s a job you’re paid for you turn up and do the job

Is the family member likely to stay committed during a crisis if it’s an unpaid role they’re doing as a favour?

More than likely not as it’s not the 1st thing on their mind

6. How will you know what is working and what is not?

What is the difference between great social media and poor social media?

What will you measure and how will you know it’s working?

If you’re not measuring what you’re doing with social media, you’re just wasting your time

The analytics side of social media is often something left out of the marketing mix on Social Media and yet it’s the most important as gives vital data to improve the creative

This should expand on what we said earlier – we are doing X because of Y to reach Z market and the results should be ABC (and here’s the proof with the measurement)

7. How much notice will you give me if you can no longer manage the social media?
In an ideal world you would be looking for a months notice to allow you to plan ahead the next stage forward if somebody handed back the social media

The key for social media success is consistency and you don’t want that awkward break where a family member gives you 24 hours notice and there is then radio silence on social media for weeks whilst you plan what to do next

Even if the role is unpaid agree a notice period in advance

8. What is the handover process if you give it up?
Will you hand me over all the

* Login Details
* Content

And importantly explain what you have been doing and why so that I can pick up from you or inform someone else as to best practice so far

NEED HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING – CHAT TO US
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We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting to you

Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services

Or

Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Alex

Alex McCann is owner of Altrincham HQ – a social media management and training company based in Altrincham, Cheshire that has worked with 100s of local business developing their social media strategy. Alex has 350+ LinkedIn testimonials and is ranked number 1 for Social Media Marketing in the UK via independent customer reviews on Freeindex.