Copy of 10 Hacks to Boost your SMM Team's Performance
10 Hacks to Boost Your SMM Team’s Performance When trying to develop a social media marketing campaign, you mainly focus on making it fun for the audience. It has to be fun and unique enough to get their attention. But what about the SMM team? If the whole project isn’t fun for them, you can’t expect it to result in an impressive outcome.
Creating an engaging SMM campaign starts by motivating the team and ensuring everyone is at their performance peak. How do we achieve that?
1. Collect Data and Turn It into Reports
You’ll be on the right way to boosting team productivity if you know: how productive are they at the moment?
Traditionally, employee engagement is measured through surveys. You need to choose a few simple questions that discover their main focus areas and show how happy they are with the tasks. Then, it’s important to measure their achievements on a monthly level and share their insights.
If you notice that a particular team member carries the entire team on their shoulders, reward their efforts. Bonuses are always a good idea! When you realize that someone is not doing as well as they could have, present them with the report and talk about the ways you could make improvements. Maybe their lack of productivity is caused by something you can influence (such as low pay or dysfunctional communication within the team).
2. Provide Great Devices
All members of your team should use the same operating system on the devices they use for work. The systems should be fully functional, fast, and equipped with the needed software. If your team members use laptops, tablets, and phones, the company would ideally provide all of those devices for them.
In addition to providing decent devices, you should also make sure they work well. Using high-quality antivirus software and clearing up storage is essential for prolonged functionality. SMM specialists deal with huge volumes of photo, video, and textual files. Their devices get clogged with time, and they become slower. When the devices are sluggish, workers’ productivity is definitely affected. You can check different ways that can help you to keep your computer clean from unnecessary apps and dangerous files.
3. Respect Their Boundaries and Encourage Breaks
You expect the SMM team members to complete all their tasks on time. But you also expect them to be active on a variety of social media, promote your brand on TikTok, commit time to team bonding, and respond to emails after work. Are you asking for too much?
Everyone needs a boundary between their work and private life. If your tasks flow over to their personal time, you’ll have a problem with their productivity sooner or later. Every team manager must learn how to respect people’s boundaries. As long as it’s not something extremely urgent, do not send any messages after working hours.
It’s also important to encourage breaks during working hours. Scheduled downtime helps people “reset” their brains and return to daily tasks with sharper focus.
4. Encourage Coordination
When you distribute tasks between SMM team members, you make sure they are coordinated. For example, when the team member responsible for graphic design completes their work, you share it with the content development team, so they can write and edit the Instagram descriptions.
If all team members are aware of the deadlines across the entire project, they will be more conscious about the work they complete.
To achieve a higher level of engagement, you can schedule the tasks in a shared spreadsheet and use a timesheet application to track time spent on the projects. That simple approach will help everyone realize how their work influences the entire project. When someone finishes their task on time, a simple thank-you note in the spreadsheet will make them feel accomplished.
5. Set a Good Example
The team manager plays a crucial role in influencing the work culture of the team. Let’s say they’ve scheduled social media newsletters to be sent at a particular time and the entire outline is ready, but they delay adding the final details and sending out the messages. In that case, we cannot expect the team members to be motivated to do their work next time.
The manager has to be a role model for everyone. When they work under pressure, they should stay calm. No matter how far the deadline is, they shouldn’t procrastinate. They must show up on time, respond to all messages, work hard, and be an example of the perfect worker they would want in their team.
Of course; nobody is perfect. But the manager has a team to motivate, so they have to be as productive as possible.
6. Send Out Good Vibes for the Start of the Day
Let’s imagine what an employee’s morning looked like. They woke up around 6 AM to exercise, prepare meals for their kids, and get ready for work. The plan looked just fine until their morning got hectic. They woke up late, their kids were screaming, and the breakfast was nowhere near the healthy plate they had in mind.
When they get to work, the vibes they receive there will make or break their day. You can influence their day with a brief morning meeting that sets a positive tone for the day. No matter how pressuring the deadlines are! You can use memes and photos to remind them of the good times they had together, and the successful projects they’ve completed so far.
If you remind them how great they can work together, they will be able to put their private problems aside while they work in an inspiring environment.
7. Automate, Hire More People and Outsource when Necessary
Automation can greatly help your SMM team to perform better. For example, the right tool for social media scheduling will help your team to manage more projects and stay productive. Instead of spending time analyzing hashtags, your team members will get clear info that will drive the brand message. Automate whenever you can; that’s one of the main rules for effective SMM campaigns!
But automation is not the only thing that can make a marketing team more productive. With urgent projects and pressuring deadlines, distributing more tasks between the same employees can be the drop that spills the glass. Remember: you must know and respect everyone’s limits. When necessary, outsource a few tasks. If the work pressure is continuously building up, you’ll have to hire more people in the team to keep the performance satisfactory.
8. Encourage Professional Development
For someone to perform at their best, they must see an opportunity for professional growth in every task they complete. To encourage their development, you can suggest courses that would help them learn more. When you notice that someone is ready for a promotion, offer it as soon as there’s an opening within the company.
Team managers should also serve as mentors. You’re viewed as someone with more knowledge and experience in the industry. Your insights can help the team members learn more on a daily basis!
9. Observe the HR Trends
When trying to boost an SMM team’s performance, don’t forget about your own performance as a leader! The field of human resources is ever-evolving. Do your best to attend conferences, learn from more experienced peers, and grow from your own experience.
For example, using technology to recruit is one of the most important trends in HR. As a team manager, you have a responsibility to choose effective tools that would optimize how you find, source, and choose new talent for your SMM team.
10. Give Them Clear, Attainable Goals
Clear, attainable goals determine all professional achievements. Setting them is one of the most important aspects of the managerial process. You have a strategy to follow, but you have to simplify it into smaller goals and tasks that your team can complete daily.
Start by developing a strategy and a clear vision for your team. When you set monthly, weekly and daily goals, create a roadmap of steps and a KPI dashboard with a direct connection to that grand strategy. This helps your team members see how their daily tasks matter for the big picture and how that huge goal is actually attainable when you break it up into a set of deliverables.
The Takeaway
Let’s face it: all SMM teams have their ups and downs. It’s a manager’s job to be the team’s driving force during all stages. When they notice a drop in the overall performance, there’s a lot they can do. The important thing is to act without delays!
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