What does the concept of ‘be the editor of your own magazine’ mean anyway? And why does it matter?
Disclaimer: young, talented, unicorn copywriters and social media marketers do exist. There are some young gun social media entrepreneurs out there for sure. I’ve met some.
Commonly juniors, admin or retail sales staff are thrown into the content deep; where they become an often unsupervised, lead-player in the direct-to-public communications function.
Social media shouldn’t be dovetailed into someone’s role whose job description has little to do with communication of the written or visual form and only has micro pockets of time outside of their actual responsibilities.
Social media is a direct to public marketing role. It’s a direct to audience voice. It’s arguably the most important communications strategy supporting your business. And usually this is tasked to a junior in the business who becomes the talking head and most important mouthpiece of your business.
Every business owner or marketing manager out there wants their social media to fire. The management of this role however is often palmed off to graduates or dovetailed into someone’s role who isn’t a natural or trained communicator.
The most common and worst mistake businesses make is that they put someone at the helm of content who just doesn’t have the industry experience to back their efforts or the ability to communicate in a way that makes it valuable.
Here are some common misadventure social media scenarios…
Big multi-national with CEO who undervalues social media. They are ‘serious business’. They’re too busy and important to need social.
Old-mate in the wide-leg bag-of-fruit running the show, decides ‘heck, we better get on social media, all of our competitors are doing the thing’. ‘Get Mary on reception to do it. She has plenty of time’.
There’s no strategy, there’s cross pollination of posts from one platform to the next, and it’s pretty ad hoc because Mary is actually very busy. It doesn’t work, but they keep going anyway because everyone else is doing it.
Medium sized retail or creative business with declining sales. Owner knows they need to do something but they’ve never needed social in the past.
Hires digital native and tech savvy niece to post a few times a week. Or gets staff on the shop floor to post when the store is quiet.
There’s no identifiable take-up, no additional sales, little to no engagement. This approach reinforces the belief that social media is fluff and bubble, but they continue with un-trained staff and no strategy just to be socially active and tick a box.
Small Business with limited resources. Values social because they themselves actively engage, grow, learn and have become loyal fans and customers to businesses via social media.
This business owner understands the incredible value of social media but has zero time to execute on it themselves. They’re trying to win and manage new clients as well as run a business (and a household, and possibly has kids). Briefs in the junior or mid-weight team member, explains it’s a priority.
Junior does the best they can, nothing much happens by way of visible return. Mostly it’s a strategy that looks good visually but doesn’t work.
These are all common and floored social media and content management scenarios
I’m all about supporting and mentoring emerging talent but I’m firmly footed in the concept that businesses should invest in content as one of the most important customer retention and acquisition strategies available to them. And the editor is the most senior communicator in the business.
Words by Jade Roberts
raraPR Founder and Creative Director
raraPR is above all the sum of people who together help build brands and share stories. We are present in our determination to make a positive difference to the world by representing individuals and businesses that are doing good. We are an extension of the personal stories within us, those that we exist for and those within you that need to be heard.
