Should I Hire Someone to Do My Social Media and Marketing for Me?

EPISODE SEVENTY NINE

If you're toying with the idea of hiring someone to do your social media for you, there are some important things for you to first consider. Many times we think that just handing off our social media for someone else to manage will give us the results that we want. But that isn't always the case. Here are some things that you should do FIRST before hiring someone to manage your social media accounts.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Jenn Hanson-dePaula: Hello, and welcome to the Book Marketing Simplified Podcast. I'm Jenn Hanson-dePaula.

Marcus dePaula: I'm Marcus dePaula. We all know that marketing our book is a challenge and there are a lot of authors that would prefer if they can afford to just hand it off to somebody else to do it for them. You have some thoughts about this.

Jenn: I sure do. I know that coming up with social media posts, managing all of that yourself can be time-consuming. There's a learning curve there and trying to figure out how to best connect with your readers. Simply hiring someone to do that for you isn't always going to be the best answer for you and your books. It does not mean that you can't hire people. I'm absolutely not saying that, but I do believe in order for you to make the social media manager or the VA, the virtual assistant, or whoever you're handing this off to, to empower them to be successful with your campaign or with what you're doing, there are definitely a few things for you to do ahead of time.

The first one, I'll say this to all the cows come home, knowing who your ideal reader is. Even if your social media manager will walk you through some things, and the good ones will, they will want you to clearly identify who it is that you're talking to, doing that ahead of time and really making sure that who it is that you're talking to is going to give you more direction to give the social media manager or the VA, and it's going to help you to better articulate what it is that you want to say, what it is that you want to accomplish with your social media and all of that good stuff.

Marcus: Then along with that, having someone else that's not you, who is the author, who's connecting with your readers, being the one in charge of creating that content that is voicing you as an author, they need to have like a north star of knowing how to portray you. Otherwise, they're connecting with your social media manager, not you as an author, right?

Jenn: Absolutely. I am a big, big believer that authors do need to still be involved with their social media, completely being hands-off with it is not a great way to create connection with your readers. Again, your social media manager, like you just said, that's the one that they're going to be connecting with. You having this idea of how you personally want to be involved, maybe that is going on stories, Instagram stories. Maybe it is popping on and doing some TikToks. It can be a variety of things, and that's something for you to decide your level of involvement there. I guarantee you every author that I have worked with who has just been completely hands-off has not seen the results that those who have been more involved with it have seen.

Marcus: If you're just trying to check a box of, I did marketing, then yes, you can put your money into hiring somebody to do it, but it's not going to be as effective as if you're involved.

Jenn: That comes to the second point is doing some research ahead of time. When we just go to a social media manager or a VA and we have no clue the look or the feel or the types of styles of posts that we want to do, it is going to be frustrating. It's going to be really an uphill battle trying to figure that out ahead of time, and you're going to be paying for that. What I always encourage authors to do is to go through their feed and take note of what stops your scroll.

What is it that really catches your eye that makes you go, "Oh, I would really love to have my posts not mimic that, but it's more so looking for inspiration." If you're hiring someone to manage this for you, it's giving them some context. It's rather than handing them a blank piece of paper and saying, "Draw me a beautiful piece of art." It's saying, "This is the style that I want. This is the feeling that I want to have my posts exude. It just, again, gives them a starting point where they can go, "Okay, I get it. I get your vision.

Marcus: Again, that style is part of your personality that's going to be speaking to and connecting with that ideal reader, which is why it's so important to know who you're talking to. Also, again, communicating that with your virtual assistant or social media manager to make sure that they understand, because I have totally missed the mark of what some of my past clients that I tried to do that for, because I didn't really get who they were speaking to. I tried my best to understand that, but ultimately, it's up to that person who is being marketed to lead the team in how the communications are going to come across, and that includes the visuals.

Jenn: Yes. When we go to a social media manager, yes, they might know what posts work best for X, Y, and Z.

Marcus: Or what's trending right now.

Jenn: Yes. They cannot fully grasp your personality. They are just getting to know you, or maybe they are still trying to figure out what it is that you want to convey. If you can go ahead of time and just map that out and just have some general ideas that you want to run with, that might help the brainstorming start and help get you on the right path quicker than just saying, okay, you just design whatever you want.

Marcus: It doesn't always have to be just social media posts. It can be magazines. It could be photos. It could be anything that inspires you and says, "This is exactly the vibe I'm going for."

Jenn: The third thing that I would encourage you to start thinking about is how you want to connect with your readers, what your hook is for your book, and how you want to create that community. I talk about this all the time, but it's really the cornerstone of your marketing, especially within your social media. When you can really get all of that mapped out, how you want to connect with your readers, again, that's infusing your personality, the different topics, the different interests, all of those things is going to, again, empower your social media manager to actually succeed with this because you want your return on your investment to come through.

Second, identifying what it is that your hook is, what your book is all about, is going to give your social media manager more to work with. Again, how you want to create that community, it's that feel. It's those feelings. It's those emotions that you really want your posts to exude so that they connect with your readers. When you can come into this relationship with a social media manager or a virtual assistant knowing what it is that you want and not just coming at this blind, it is going to make that relationship that much more effective, but you're also not just going to be wasting money trying things out, paying to figure out what it is that you want.

I know that the main goal is for authors to be writing and creating their books. Handing off your social media might feel very appealing to you, but we have all these elements in the standout for social media. We have these things in the Author Circle that can help you get these elements in place and to work out all of those details ahead of time so that you can hand it over to a social media manager to make sure that everything gets covered.

Marcus: If you are looking for someone to help you with your marketing, either a social media manager or a virtual assistant, are there some red flags that you have as someone who is in that position that you would recommend authors keep an eye out for to make sure that their money is well spent?

Jenn: The first red flag is when someone guarantees certain results, whether that be a certain number of followers, a certain number of views, a certain number, all of these things. We cannot, especially with social media, guarantee human behavior. We can't ensure that people are going to respond to X, Y, and Z. When there are these guarantees of these outlandish, impossible tasks, usually they are impossible.

Marcus: If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Jenn: Many times there are people that buy followers or they buy certain things, and that is going to screw you over in so many different ways. The second red flag, sometimes there are people who are bulldozers, like it's their way or the highway. You have to do certain things. You have to do X, Y, and Z. If you feel uncomfortable doing anything or if anything is just off-putting to you--

Marcus: If they're not listening to you.

Jenn: Yes. You don't have to agree to that. This is, again, representing you. If you feel like this is not representative of who I am, of what my book is, of what I stand for, you do not have to follow that. If they're making suggestions like reels on Instagram get more views than regular posts, great. You can take that information, and if they are able to help you create more posts and if they're leading you in a direction, that's fantastic. If they are, like you said, not listening to you and your hesitations or anything like that is a bit of a red flag.

Marcus: Yes. Then keeping in mind that as human beings, we all have different tastes, different things we like, different things we dislike, especially when it comes to these very subjective creative elements that we're needing to create for our marketing, whether it's the visuals or the music or the word choice, all that stuff. It is hard sometimes to find that person that is on the same wavelength as you creatively and someone who's going to create things on your behalf that reflect you individually as an author.

Jenn: Absolutely. It's realizing that if it's not a good fit, you don't have to continue that relationship. If you want to do a trial run, I always tell authors, give something a month because then you have data and you have some great information to see, "Okay, this is working or not." You don't want to just give it a week unless there's a big, big problem that arises. The person managing your social media might need time to figure you out and figure the approach out. Giving it time, making sure that you're both on the same wavelength, and doing that work ahead of time is going to help significantly.

Marcus: One great thing that you can just try out temporarily is starting with just one-month subscription to the Author Circle and seeing what other authors are up to.

Jenn: Even more so, we have the resources there to help you start to identify your ideal reader, to figure out your style and how it is that you want to craft your messaging and all of that good stuff. It's really empowering you to have your ducks in a row. When you do have the opportunity to hire a social media manager or VA, you're going to be much more well-equipped and you're not going to be coming at it from zero. You're going to have something to work with. It's a really fantastic community, and we would love to have you there.

Marcus: As always, we really enjoy receiving questions and learning about what it is specifically that you're struggling with right now. We'd love to be able to talk about that on the podcast. Reach out to us on jenndepaula.com. Leave us a comment in your favorite podcasting app. We'd love to hear feedback from you.

Jenn: Thank you so much.

Marcus: Talk to you soon.