How to Manage Social Media Like a Professional Manager Would

You likely spend a lot of time on social media: liking posts for vendor friends, scoping what others are doing or searching for inspiration. The thing is, when it comes to using social media as a tool to market your business, none of those things matter—because just being on the platforms is not a way to move the marketing needle. You need to have a strategy and you need to approach the tactics in it like an outsider would. Wondering how to do that? Read on for ways to start creating a proper social media strategy and advice about how to manage social media like a social media manager would.

We’ve put together this worksheet for you to download and take notes in as you read this piece!

It starts with a social media strategy

The biggest difference between how you likely approach social media and how a professional manager would is whether or not you are operating off of a specific strategy or if you are doing things on the fly (which, as Tayler likes to say, is not a strategy). But, don’t let the word “strategy” scare you—a strategy is simply the what, when, and goals behind what you are going to do. And, if you’ve skipped over this step, it was probably because you didn’t know where to start.

So, how do you start creating a social media strategy?

The first step (that you will also see in your worksheet) is knowing what you are selling. Sure, we’re talking about the service you provide (and you’re probably thinking DUH) but we’re also talking about the benefits and value of those services—which is really what you are selling. Think of it this way: When a potential client finds themselves in a situation where they are comparing two seemingly equal planners or florists or service providers, do you think they are going to hire the person who simply told them the tasks they would complete or the person who helped them understand how they would make things easier, better, etc.? So, the very first step in strategizing how you are going to use social media to market your business is putting these details on paper so you have the clearest understanding of your value and can communicate it moving forward.

The next step to creating your social media strategy is giving it some structure with a timeframe and progress markers. Look at your calendar year and ask yourself things like:

• What are the important dates and revenue goals for me as the business owner?

• What are the important dates and revenue goals for my business?

• When should I be fully booked for the upcoming wedding season by?

• How many leads per month do I need to be seeing in order to hit my booking rate?

• How many visits to my website do I need in order to get the number of leads I need?

Having these types of objectives documented along with the dates you’d like to achieve them by helps you to find that sweet spot when it comes to creating content that is focused on sales versus focused on brand building.

The last major piece to creating a social media strategy is understanding what tools you need to have in your toolbox. If you were to actually hire someone to manage your account, these would be the things they asked for, so it’s time to get organized like they would instead of creating and looking for things on the fly! What do you need to think about having in your toolbox?

• The types of content you want to create (posts, stories, Reels, TikTok videos, FB posts, lives, etc.)

• The main messages you need to communicate from both a brand and sales perspective

• Access to the photos or visual assets that are on-brand for you

• Templates to expedite content creation

• A defined brand voice

• An understanding of whether long or short form captions work best with your audience

• A list of hashtags that are relevant to your business

• Landing pages to direct people to with the information they are looking for after clicking through

Once you have documented your products, benefits, timeline, milestones, and what you have in your toolbox, the only thing left to do is to piece them together to create your strategy. Remember, a strategy is mostly answering the questions what, when, and why (read: your goal), so open up a Google Doc, excel sheet or grab a paper calendar and start mapping things out!

Pro-tip: Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the thought of planning everything for the year? Sit down and strategize 4-12 weeks at a time.

Understand what makes a “good” social media post

Now that you’re well on your way to having a solid social media strategy, it’s time to make sure that the time you put into content creation is time well spent. Because, sure—some spaghetti needs to be thrown against the wall while you are refining things, but the key to thinking like a social media manager is knowing what goes into a great or effective post. Now, we’re pretty sure you can pick out the most beautiful images from your portfolio (and if you ever find yourself needing something in particular, we’ve definitely got your back with styled stock photos!), so we’re going to focus this part on copy since almost everyone says they hate writing. So, here are our top copywriting tips:

• A good social media manager wouldn’t just write captions that describe the contents of the photo every time (which is something we see a lot of wedding pros do) because the photos can speak for themselves. What a social media manager would do is write a caption that complements the image, playing off of it to describe or dig into the reader’s problem, challenge, or needs—and then position you as the hero by the end of the caption

• Be sure to pull on the emotional strings you have in order to draw people in, show your expertise, and position yourself as the perfect expert to help. And, we’re not just talking about the you’re-head-over-heels-in-love string. Every once in a while, you need to agitate your audience with the problem of what happens if they DON’T hire you

• It is important to get in the habit of directing people to their next move and ushering them through your sales funnel. You do that by using CTAs (calls to action) because people sometimes seriously need to be told what to do 

Tips to manage social media

Which brings us to the last piece—tips to help you manage social media like a pro! A social media manager is precise and works to maximize their productivity because (very often) they have more than one client. And, we know what it feels like to look at your business baby and want nothing but perfection for it but, the fact of the matter is, you cannot overthink this! Perfection is not the goal when it comes to social media marketing—consistency is.

So, how can you cut the emotional cord, become more objective and more productive? You can set yourself up to get your content planned, created, and scheduled easily when you:

• Create a routine. For example, Tayler does all of her social planning for the next 1-2 weeks every Friday (seriously, like clockwork and come rain or shine). You should pick a day and time of the week that works best for you and commit!

• Batch your content creation. Whether it is sitting down to write a few blog posts at once, opening Canva for an hour and creating a bunch of graphics or spending time curating the best photos from your most recent weddings, keeping yourself from bouncing in-between tasks will help you become more precise and productive

• Get a social media scheduler. We use and love Later!

• Start with what is easiest for you and your brain. For example, Tayler tends to write blog posts first, then plans out the images to curate the grid around the blog’s social post, and then comes back to write all the captions. Whatever workflow works for you—do that

• When you get stuck or are feeling like you have no words, do not even hesitate to reuse something you have already published! The truth is, if the post is more than a month old, no one is going to remember that you shared it before and your website and blog posts are a great place to go copy and paste things from 

We’d like to say, “and there you have it,” but we know that putting together a strategy to manage your social media like a professional would is an effort in and of itself. But, we promise it is worth the effort! And, if you want to add a few tools to your toolbox, be sure to sign up for our email list—we’ll send you 10 free stock photos right then and there as well as 3 more each time we release new collections!