Best Practices for Managing Social Media Accounts

TL;DR

What are the best practices for managing multiple corporate social media accounts?

Core Definition: Managing multiple corporate social media accounts is the process of overseeing and coordinating the social media presence for various brands, clients, or company departments. It involves ensuring each account maintains a consistent and appropriate brand voice, engages its specific audience effectively, and aligns with overarching business objectives across different platforms.

Juggling multiple corporate social media accounts, whether for different clients or internal departments, presents a unique set of challenges. From maintaining distinct brand voices to tracking engagement across various platforms, a strategic approach is essential to avoid common pitfalls like mixed messages or missed customer interactions and to maximize your impact.

Deeply understand the unique audience for each account to create informative, helpful, and engaging content that solves problems rather than just pushing sales.
Establish and consistently maintain a distinct brand voice for every account to build trust and relatability, avoiding generic slang that can seem out of touch.
Tailor your content strategy to the specific social media channel, recognizing that platforms like Twitter may be for customer service while Instagram is better for creative brand building.
Focus on being human and engaging by participating in two-way conversations, asking questions, and showing reciprocal appreciation for follower interactions.

You're considered the social media maven of the marketing department, but are you ready to manage the corporate accounts? Managing social media accounts is the process of overseeing an organization's online presence and communications across platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. There's a lot to keep in mind when it comes to managing an organization's presence on social media.

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Are you staying on voice? Which voice are you supposed to be using for that account again? Did you remember to re-post the content from one account over to the other one the next day? Are you on top of mentions? Did a customer comment go unnoticed? Which account are you supposed to use to respond to that feedback? Are you looking at Social Media for B2B or instead looking to engage e-commerce customers?

Here are some general ideas to help manage multiple accounts, whether all within one company or for separate client companies.

What to know

You'll need to know some fundamental things before tackling a portfolio of social media accounts. Each of these things is relevant for each account you're in charge of, be it separate accounts for departments within your company or if you're a marketer with several client companies.

Your audience

There are some universals when it comes to marketing on social media. Gone are the days when you could sell, sell, sell, using your presence for nothing more than pushing your widget to the world. These days, brands are using social media to present their human side. Content needs to be informative, helpful, and engaging. Remember, people are interacting with brands here because they have a question, a problem to solve, or they want information about the brand and its industry.
People on social media do not want to be sold to. They do not want to feel like they are being targeted for a pitch. They want to be entertained and informed and feel they can relate to the brand. They want to be able to see the person behind the account and that they are understood by that person.
Your brand

Maintaining brand voice is key to building trust with your audience. It also boosts engagement. Why? Because people are more willing to strike up a conversation with an account they can relate to and feel represents the company accurately. This means you need to be able to keep your brand voices straight if you're representing multiple companies.
It also means that you should probably avoid internet slang or trending phrases when managing social media accounts. These can make you seem out of touch with your audience and easily slide into tone-deaf cultural insensitivity. It's extremely difficult to recover from once a faux pas of this sort is made. So keep to your brand voice, and remember to stay professional.
Your channels

There are many social media platforms, and it pays to remember which one you're on at any moment. This relates strongly to knowing your audience in that you need to know what they're expecting so you can deliver appropriate content no matter the medium.
For example, many companies use Twitter primarily for customer service-related communication, while Instagram is a better place for creative, audience-growing efforts. Keeping in mind the main focus of each channel you're present on means you won't mix up these different content types, which can confuse your audience and lead to them ditching you to follow a competitor's account that stays more on point.

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What to be

Along with staying in tune with your audience, brand, and channels, there are some key characteristics you need to embody when managing social media accounts. These tips will help when interacting with your audience and helping you convey your brand message.

Engaging

Social media is about the conversation. It’s not just for posting links to your product pages and forgetting about it. People want a friendly face when they interact with a company online, and as the company's representative on social media, it would behoove you to be there when they ask questions or post comments.
Pro tip: Turn it around on your audience by asking them questions. This shows a deeper level of engagement, especially if your questions are topically relevant. Now, you're not only answering their questions but showing interest in their opinions, feelings, and thoughts by asking for input.
This engagement extends to all forms of social media, from Facebook comments and likes to Tweets and mentions. When a follower retweets your content, remember to thank them and even retweet something they post. And when they like a blog post on Facebook, read something of theirs and make a thoughtful comment. This reciprocal approach shows a deeper attachment between your followers and your company and continues building the trust that began with your brand voice.
A person

Accounts that feel like they're staffed not by a human person but rather by a bot don't retain followers. Neither do accounts that do nothing but post promotions and never say anything useful. In fact, according to a Sprout Social poll, the top two reasons people become disenfranchised by a brand on social media are because it's posting too many promotions and using too much slang.
We covered both under the "Know your audience" section, but they're worth repeating. When you're sitting at the coffee shop chatting with friends, is work all you talk about? Do you use internet slang when talking with coworkers about a new campaign? Most likely not.
So why are you posting this stuff to your company accounts?
Something else to remember: it's more than OK to go off-topic sometimes. Back to that coffee shop conversation, if all you talk about is work, you'll have some seriously disinterested friends, right?
Remember, you're the human voice of the company, so post like a human.

How to accomplish all this

The single biggest tip we can offer for effective social media account management is to automate. Automate, automate and then automate some more. Several great tools support multiple accounts, full automation, and additional analytics to track your performance in the above areas.

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Social media automation is the use of software tools to help manage and streamline social media activities. These tools help you keep your accounts straight so you don't use the wrong company voice at the wrong time. They also help you by allowing you to track analytics for each account, campaign, or channel. This is key to knowing what's working and what's not. Maybe Twitter isn't paying the dividends for the job listings, but it's going quite well for the customer service account. Or perhaps you find LinkedIn is the better choice for the long-form tutorials you've posted to Facebook. Whatever the specifics, the metrics and analytics offered by automation software are often worth their weight in gold.

These statistics will help you fine-tune each presence to get the most out of your time spent with each account, on each platform, and for each brand you're representing. By automating as much of your social media management as possible, you're saving yourself the effort of remembering all these details, which lets you spend more time in authentic conversations with your followers.

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Corporate Social Media Management FAQ

Why is a consistent brand voice crucial for social media management?

Popular

Yes, a consistent brand voice is vital for success. The content shows that audiences are more willing to engage with a relatable brand persona. This is because it builds trust.

How can I efficiently manage multiple social media accounts?

Popular

The most efficient method is using automation tools. These platforms allow you to schedule posts and track analytics across accounts. This saves time for authentic engagement.

Should I post the same content across all social media platforms?

No, you should tailor content to each platform. Evidence suggests different channels serve different purposes, like Twitter for service and Instagram for creative posts. This avoids confusing your audience.

What is the biggest mistake brands make on corporate social media?

The biggest mistake is posting too many promotions. Data from Sprout Social shows this is a top reason users unfollow brands, as they prefer helpful and engaging content.

How can I make a corporate social media account feel more human?

You can make an account feel more human by being engaging. The text advises asking your audience questions and replying to comments. This shows you value their input and builds community.

Is it okay for a corporate account to post non-promotional content?

Yes, it is highly recommended to post non-promotional content. The article states that brands use social media to present their human side. This makes the account more relatable.

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Written By Jesse

Jesse hails from Seattle, WA. When he's not creating great content or staring at his laptop screen waiting for inspiration, he's probably walking in the trees somewhere in the foothills of the nearby Cascade Mountains.