Should You Have Multiple Social Media Managers?

As your business expands, or if you have too many followers for one person to handle, you might think about the possibility of hiring another social media manager, or splitting social media management responsibilities between two parties.

But is it a good idea to have two different team members working on your social media accounts?

The Advantages

There are some serious advantages to this approach:

• Immediacy and availability. If you respond quickly on social media, 71 percent of your message recipients will be likely to refer to someone else. Social media followers are an impatient crowd, and when they ask a question or engage with your brand, they’ll want an answer immediately. Having multiple people managing your pages will naturally cut the time it takes to respond in half, since your managers can cover for each other.
• Hours and coverage. Having multiple managers also allows you to split shifts, so one person isn’t responsible for monitoring the page 24/7. Plus, if one of your managers is injured in a car accident or otherwise indisposed, the other can take over without a significant interruption in your coverage.
• Voice diversity. In some cases, having multiple voices control your brand is a good thing. You might be able to appeal to multiple audience segments simultaneously, and give your brand a deeper, richer character.
• Stress and burnout. Don’t forget that managing a social media account for a major brand can be a rough gig with long hours and high stress. Having multiple people share the burden of those responsibilities can improve morale and reduce the risk of burnout.

The Downsides

However, you also have to account for the downsides:

• Voice inconsistency. For the most part, it’s best to have a consistent brand voice that your followers can count on every time you make a post. While you may be able to define your voice in objective terms, having multiple people run your account will invariably lead to slightly different directions and voice interpretations. That inconsistency can give your brand a kind of schizophrenia that can turn followers off.
• Role overlap. You could also run into trouble clearly defining the roles of your managers. If you get an incoming message, both managers could spend time drafting and sending a response, which not only wastes time, but makes your brand look disorganized.
• Even if you get someone inexperienced, or hire someone part-time, bringing on another social media manager can get expensive. If you’re a small- to mid-sized company with a limited budget, this may not be in your best interests.

Variables to Consider

So is it better to have one or multiple social media managers? There’s no straightforward answer, but these are the variables that should help you decide:

• Number of accounts and followers. As you might imagine, the bigger and more complex your social media network is, the more you’re going to need an extra pair of hands to manage things. If you have multiple accounts and all those accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers, you’ll almost need to have multiple social media managers.
• Brand characteristics. You should also consider the characteristics of your brand. Is it vital to maintain a consistent image, or do you have some wiggle room? Can your brand voice easily be replicated by other people? If so, you won’t have to worry about whether your new hires can succeed in the role.
• You should also consider your budget. While social media has a high ROI in general, that ROI can get thrown out the window if you spend too much money on the people running your campaigns. Make sure you have a solid profitability model and feel confident in your return before you bring someone else on.
• Roles and responsibilities. Finally, consider how you would split the roles and responsibilities. Would you make each person responsible for a different core platform, or would you separate them by core responsibility, such as responding to messages or scheduling posts? No matter what you choose, make sure you have a formalized document in place that explains those guidelines—that way, there’s no ambiguity to get in the way of your performance.

Ultimately, it’s up to you whether you want to have multiple people working on your accounts. If you choose to make the hires or split the responsibilities, make sure the lines of division are clear, and provide equal training to ensure as much consistency as possible across the board.