Social Media Marketing – Expectations vs Reality

Are you one of those people who think it must be so cool to be paid for spending time on social media all day? Do you also believe that social media marketing is the easiest and most fun jobs out there? Are you one of those who cribs about his or her job and wishes your life were as “easy” as a social media manager?

Well, then this blog post is exactly what you need, my friend. Because there are a lot of misconceptions about working in social media. And the job is not as rosy as it looks on the outside. Having been working in this field for some time now, I have today taken this upon myself to break a few myths about social media marketing.

Let’s begin, shall we?

Expectation

All you have to do is post on the social media platform.

Reality

Umm..NO! Posting on social media is just one of the mid-way tasks. A full time social media manager is not only responsible for posting, but also for preparing a social media calendar, planning the posts weeks and months in advance, designing the posts, setting the tone for captions, going back and forth with client approvals and then monitoring the engagement on each post for a multitude of channels.

Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

Expectation

Liking and commenting on profiles is a fun job.

Reality

Sure! But not so much so when you have to actually analyze the type of content you must engage with. A social  media person has to be really tactful while liking and commenting on other accounts. You have to know the niche, the competition, the people who are relevant to your business, be very aware of when those accounts are posting, have to utilize tools for social listening and most often use automated tools for help.

Told ya, it’s not all hunky-dory over here!

Expectation

You don’t need a lot of hard work for social media.

Reality

Hmm..well. Let’s see. As a social media manager, you are almost all the time thinking about creative ways to create content (even in your sleep), learning new tools on a everyday basis, keeping on track with all the topical news and social media updates, experimenting with newer updates and answering difficult client questions and tracking user engagement patterns and business objectives.

Sorry, what was that you said about hard work again?

Expectation

You get paid for stalking people on social media? Wow!

Reality

No, we get paid for stalking the right people. And striking conversations with them. And making reports on them. And coming up with ideas and strategies based on the reports. And then executing those ideas with tangible results.

Expectation

What do you mean that social media marketing involves a lot of data?

Reality

What I mean is analyzing user and competitor data is one of the most important tasks of a social media manager. We usually do it on a monthly basis. We use tools like Google Analytics to understand the behavior and pattern of people who engage with our content. This analysis then helps us understand what is working and what is not for our brand or the client’s brand. All future content we create is then based on this understanding. And the cycle repeats.

So to sum it up, a social media marketer’s job is not only to make memes and watch cat videos all day. It involves a lot of hard work, strategic planning, creativity and communication skills. And it is a round-the-clock job. Sometimes, you cannot even draw the line between leisure and work.

Sure, we have our fun along the way. And sometimes, we will find ourselves watching marketing Gifs all day. But our thinking hats are always on and the clock is always ticking!