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Social Media Manager’s Daily Checklist

Feel as if you’re forgetting something? Not sure how to make the most out of your day as a social media manager — or where to even start?

A daily checklist of tasks will help you stay focused and productive when managing your brand’s social media pages. With a daily checklist, you’ll keep track of what you need to accomplish, from publishing content to replying to messages and more. Check out our suggestions and tips for handling your day below.

Reply to Messages and Mentions

First, check each platform’s notifications, messages, and mentions that have popped up since your last login. A software tool that collects these messages all in one place can save time. Time is a big factor in maintaining customer loyalty for your brand. Wait too long to respond to an angry review or an urgent question, and you may lose your customers’ trust. 42% of customers expect a response within an hour.

It might help to read through all your inbound messages and comments first to see which need responses ASAP. Then you can go back and reply to other messages, mentions, and comments. Thank anyone who mentions you favorably, answer the questions you can, or let the user know you will research the answer they need and get back to them. For any serious issues, offer to connect with the user via direct message, email, or other private channel.

Publish and Curate Content

Your brand should already have scheduled content in the queue — no one likes to rush a piece of content just to have something new to post! Make sure that your scheduled content is ready to go, especially if any details or information in it have changed since it was written.

Need new content last minute? Consider social media content syndication, or repurposing an existing piece of your content across different channels. For example, you could repurpose a lengthy blog post about a social media manager’s daily tasks into short Facebook posts, Instagram stories, or tweets.

Another simple idea is to curate content from trustworthy sources. You should follow leaders and influencers in your industry, along with relevant hashtags. When you see useful content that these users have recently posted, repost it for your followers and add your own comments.

Here are some key ideas to keep in mind when planning and producing social media content:

  • Know your target audience and your goals
  • Brainstorm different types of content, like behind-the-scenes videos or employee spotlights
  • Use an editorial calendar to plan regular content
  • Don’t forget your brand voice

After you’ve published content and brainstormed new content ideas, it’s time to scope out the competition.

Check Out Your Competition

A good social media manager knows their target audience. That means they also know their audience’s environment and habits. Who else do they follow or engage with online, besides your brand? 

Knowing what your competition is doing is important. A competitive analysis can tell you what type of social media is working in your market, where your brand can improve, and what you may want to implement in your social media strategy going forward.

We’re not suggesting that you jump on the bandwagon and copy everything your competition is doing. Part of what makes a brand stand out from those competitors is brand integrity: knowing what makes you different and valuable to your audience. Being aware of your industry and others in it can help you understand how to serve your community — in your own unique way. 

Engage with Your Audience

Social media management is all about engagement: having conversations with your brand’s audience. Remember that conversations aren’t one-sided; or at least, they shouldn’t be! 

Reply to your followers, then keep the conversation going. Ask questions. Respond to those answers, too. Use relevant hashtags and participate in appropriate challenges. Chime in on important or trendy topics. Engage with other profiles and social media users. 

The more often you engage with your community, the more often you’ll show up in your followers’ feeds or explore pages. Engagement not only builds your brand, it makes your brand more visible online. 

When you take the time to listen and talk to your audience, you’re building trust and instilling loyalty. You’re building a community. That’ll pay off for your brand when you see a higher follower count, more leads, and boosted sales.

Tackle Your To-Do List with ThumbStopper

You know that social media management is a crucial part of a brand’s business. Done well, social media content and engagement can amplify your brand. If your time as a social media manager is limited, your brand’s online presence doesn’t need to suffer.

ThumbStopper’s automated, turnkey solutions create custom, curated feeds for your content. It syndicates your content directly to your local retailers’ feeds, putting your brand in front of relevant audiences. Want to learn more about how ThumbStopper can help your brand? Contact us today.

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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It’s one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience – with your accessible, branded content – in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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[/et_pb_column]
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[/et_pb_column]
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