The Hectic Life Of A Social Media Manager

From curating content to planning, scheduling, measuring, analyzing, experimenting, helping the team internally and figuring out what to have for lunch, the life of a social media manager is nothing short of a rollercoaster ride!

This turbulence and upheaval exists in their life despite the availability of social media management tools.

The question is why do these tools complicate life vs making it easier and simpler?!

We did a bit of analysis on our end and we think following are the possible reasons for it.

Firstly, let’s relook at the problem statement. The problem is not the abundance of tools, the problem is the lack of right* tools.

And before you bombard us with your product decks that have been tried and tested in the market, let’s look at the little asterisk mark in the above statement. Choosing the ‘right’ tool is as difficult as or probably more difficult than finding your soulmate or choosing a place to eat!

• A lot depends on what you are seeking or expecting from the tool. Each tool has a peculiar way of functioning, be it data capturing or its representation. Every social media marketer has a different requirement for how they want to look at and analyze the data. Unlike an offline shop that shuts down in the night, social media is 2-way communication channel that keeps running non-stop! And this leads to creation of a humongous amount of data. Therefore, it is important to know what data points are important for your business. For example: As an ecommerce brand, you will care about number of transactions, while as B2B technology company, you will care about relevancy of leads, while as a product that doesn’t sell online, you will only care about engagement.
• Our further analysis got us into a whole human vs robot debate. Social media is part creative (right brain) and part technology/analytics (left brain). So, while machines exist to capture data non-stop, a human mind is required to make sense of it. For a tools company, subtleties are minor rounding errors in the larger context but for a social media marketer those subtleties are what need handling. Ironies, sarcasm and all sort of contradictory emotions are every social marketer’s nightmare and most tools can’t distinguish these emotions.
• Social and digital media is a nascent industry, which means everyone is evolving. The marketers and the brands alike. We keep inventing new means to connect and engage and discover new hacks everyday!
• Platforms are evolving by the day, which makes it very difficult to keep up. One week off and you are behind the curve. One month off and you are outdated.

So, before choosing any tool, ask yourselves the same questions that you would have before choosing a place to eat!

• Does it suit your needs?
• Does it allow you to have add-ons?
• Does it make the overall experience worthwhile?
• Does it offer over and beyond others in the market?
• Is it affordable or unnecessarily expensive?

Above all, think whether you will be able to do some decision making from the data or the analysis the tool throws at you. Having data because it looks good to you is a recipe for disaster.

Hope this helps ease your life a bit! Let us know about your thoughts in the comment box below.