No, An Intern Shouldn’t Handle Your Social Marketing

Listen. We love social marketing interns. The bright minds of the future are knocking on our doors and working for reasonable wages. But there are several reasons why you shouldn't just toss an intern into starting or running your social marketing efforts.

STRATEGY

Social isn't just a place to update every once in awhile. An intimate understanding of your goals and business model is required to generate a meaningful social strategy. Therefore, we believe that the best assets you have at your disposal begin at the top and continue with the marketing and sales departments.

ADVERTISING

A large part of your success on social is dependent on advertising and optimization. Boosting posts for an arbitrary amount is not a best practice. You need to segment, target and optimize toward the lowest costs. This is generally something that takes a lot of time and could very well be a full-time job when executing correctly.

COMPETITION

An intimate understanding of your business also requires knowing your industry and competitors. What is regulated, newsworthy and appropriate for promotion? Additionally, targeting options on social ads offer the ability to get granular, so knowing what your audience cares about and what your competitors' customers care about is paramount. These are issues and ideas that you cannot expect an intern, or even an army of interns, to know.

So what can interns help with in terms of social marketing? Here's one BIG idea:

CONTENT

Now here is somewhere that interns can be a huge help. Once the strategy is dictated, the goals are outlined and the measurement process is in place, the content is the biggest pillar of success. Young people generally have an established sense of what is eye-catching on social media platforms and what works. Utilize this! Have them generate some great graphics or Flipagrams, film your employees or start a Q&A series with your executives. You've got a wealth of knowledge at your disposal here.

Remember: a strong social marketing presence takes time and attention–from the whole team–from the top down. Deciding what the goals are to execution to measurement can involve lots of people and shouldn't depend solely on an intern.