As a social media manager, you find yourself managing MANY social media accounts, and not just per client, but some clients will often have more than one for their brand. In fact, a Twitter survey concluded that on average, social media managers are often running 40 accounts simultaneously! Even if you’re not a social media manager for a living, after clocking up Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram, TikTok, Threads- you may be surprised at how many you yourself run every day, whether it’s personal or for business.
It’s fine to say that you’re running several accounts as a business, but are you doing it correctly? And do you necessarily need to be on every social media website out there? These are all important things you need to ask yourself before heading out into the big wide world of social media, and here, we will help you to answer them!
The Pros and Cons of Having Multiple Social Media Accounts
Before you even sit down and create your social media accounts for your brand, you need to really ask yourself as to whether you NEED to have them all. Instead of looking wider, look deeper – who is your target audience? What kind of content do you think you’ll be making? Is your brand more visual or text focused? All of this will inform as to which social media sites you should be on, and which you’d be best to avoid. Yes. Avoid. Having one or two accounts that you use actively looks way better than having six of which three you do not use.
So, do a bit of research, not just into your businesses, but into the accounts themselves and who their audience and focus are.
The Pros
Because different social media accounts have a different audience and focus, you have an opportunity to reach a wider pool of people. For example, I have always heavily recommended to my own clients that they focus different aspects of their business on different sites. For example – if you run a holiday home, and you have beautiful visuals of the house, the area around it and things to do, take full advantage of the fact that Instagram LOVES reels and pretty pictures, a lot more than text in fact. Whereas on Facebook, why not focus more on information about the house? And also links to where potential visitors can book directly on the post (as Instagram doesn’t allow link sharing on their posts.)
These are two ways your brand can access two very different social media focusses, whilst making it work for their brand! If you like, you can go even more focussed once you’re familiar with your audience base on those sites – do they lean more heavily towards calming activities around the area on your Instagram page and perhaps parties on Facebook? Tailor it further to reach that wider audience pool!
This also allows you to create a wider pool of content too. Whilst some may view this as time consuming, it can make you very good at learning to adapt content for different purposes, personalising your customers’ experience and making them really feel a part of your community. By reaching a wider audience too, it gives you the chance to reach out and connect with more people who love your brand, creating a bigger community. Always a plus!
The Cons
It’s no secret that managing multiple social media accounts can become incredibly time consuming if not done correctly, hence the often-abandoned TikTok or Twitter account (guilty as charged!) It requires significant time and resources to ensure you’re giving each account the time it deserves, and equal attention too. Don’t let yourself get burnt out!
You can also run the risk of fracturing your audience without a cohesive message between both – remember when I recommended using different social media accounts for different aspects of your brand? Of course, do this, (as it will also encourage audiences to follow both accounts to get different examples of what you can offer) but ensure that your brand is still cohesive across both accounts and, if you have important announcements, that you don’t fail to ignore one or the other. Cross posting is acceptable on some occasions, we promise.
Speaking of cross-posting. With more social media accounts to manage, you also increase the risk of posting the wrong thing to the wrong social account. We’ve all done it, scheduled something and wondered why it hasn’t gone out yet only to realise oops, wrong account!
So, how DO you manage multiple social media accounts to prevent these things from happening? Well-
Create a Strategy
This is vitally important for ANY social media marketing you intend to do and the first step? Identify your goals. What do you want out of each social media channel? What can they do for your brand? Hopefully you will have looked at the audience and focus of each channel and tailored your goals for each one. This may also help you to decide which social media channels are worth your time and which ones aren’t.
Build a Content Plan
Again, this is vital even if you’re just managing the one platform but believe me when I say that making a content planner will save you a headache down the line. Not only will it help you to keep track of what’s going out and when, it will allow you to plan and schedule your content ahead of time, preventing that dreaded burnout. Make it work with your strategy and your goals to build towards those and, if you feel they’re not working, you can always alter it later on down the line. This moves us onto-
Scheduling
Scheduling is so important when it comes to managing multiple accounts. By automating your posting, you’re not having to post onto several accounts every day, and instead you can focus on what really matters – your business and interacting with your audience. If you’re too busy making content every single day to post up on your social media, you’ll be far too preoccupied to actually interact with your followers, something that is massively important to your digital marketing strategy. Instead, if you automate everything, you can dedicate a day a week instead of everyday. It will also help you to feel on top of everything too!
So that’s it. Although managing several social media accounts at a time can be incredibly daunting, it is entirely feasible (I should know!) By following these tips, you can make it a breeze. But, if you feel like you may need a hand, there is no shame in hiring a social media manager to take on the task for you. Sometimes your time is important when it comes to your business, and you can still have a say on your social media if someone else runs it for you! It just means that they take up all the hassle of posting, whilst you sit back and run your business.
