Lee Densmer’s Post

Basic questions every business should ask when hiring a social media manager. 1: What do you know about my industry? 2: Can you show me case studies or examples of how you've helped other clients? 3: How do you stay up to date with platforms? 4: What tools do you use? 5: How do you measure success? 6: What is the content development process? 7: How do you handle negative feedback? 8: What is your communication and reporting style? 9: Describe a challenging project & how you handled it. 10: What are your terms & pricing structures? -ML

Here’s a bit of a rant. Could everyone please stop listing "strategy" as a skill unless they're genuinely a strategist? It undermines our work and the entire industry. Strategy isn’t just a skill; it’s a career. You can’t be a strategist and juggle fifty other roles simultaneously. You can be a creative strategist or a creative planner, but that’s still within the strategic realm. Just because you’ve written a few strategy slides doesn’t make you a strategist. Strategy isn’t something you can template. I often see job applicants' CVs, and let’s take an example from a marketing manager with 2 years of experience. They typically state: “I have a strong background from XXX and XXX, and 2 years of experience. I bring expertise in strategy, client servicing, social media, content creation, and managing creative campaigns.” You’re an account executive learning to be an account manager. The only accurate claims there are client servicing and managing creative campaigns. You should add managing client relations, assisting in content creation, and deploying strategy. You’re not a strategist. #Advertising #Strategy

It's refreshing to see the catch-all social media manager role slowly dying throughout the years. 10 years ago, it was pretty normal for SMMs to manage 5-7 accounts at once. Content creation, community management, platform trends, analytics, reporting, influencer engagement, etc. Way too much for one person to do well. Hire specialists that are great at the content format & are platform experts (wherever your customers spend most of their time). Seeing more and more companies go this route with hiring. I'd rather have 2-3 specialists working part time than one social media manager drowning trying to keep up with all those platforms. This could be a content writer + short form video expert + a social growth specialist. or just double down on 1 platform and hire someone who is obsessed with it (but also knows your niche very well).

Strategy is not a career.. it's a fundamental human capability that we all utilize every day, whether we're planning a lunch or charting the course for our lives. Strategy is simply the art of setting goals and devising effective ways to achieve them. It's a critical skill that transcends any single profession or industry! So yes, strategy is CERTAINLY a skill, not a "career".

I get this question all the time... "I'm ready to build my marketing team. Who should I hire first?" My answer is always the same: 1. If you're a founder and not a strong writer, hire a copywriter. This person needs to be in-house. They should be eating, sleeping, breathing the brand. Nothing pulls an audience in faster and sets your brand apart than a strong voice, excellent writing, and a compelling story. Especially in this stage of AI, where everything is getting blended into vanilla voice, a great writer will be essential to building brand equity in the next 5 years. Also, copywriters are criminally underpaid and undervalued for their ability to contribute to conversions at all stages of the sales funnel. 2. If you're a founder and have great writing/voice covered in-house, then hire a marketing coordinator. Typically you're looking for at least 2 years' experience, someone who is a generalist and highly organized and unafraid to keep people on task. This person may also be hungry to grow into a specialist but hasn't had the opportunity to figure out what they're good at yet. You can design a professional roadmap for them to uncover their innate talents and funnel those into a specialist manager role at the next pay grade after 1-2 years of work, depending on their scope of daily responsibility. Or they can continue to manage the brand overall, and move directly from coordinator to manager to sr. manager to director and so on. Someone who grows up with your brand and takes ownership in it is priceless. Both of these roles have room to grow, expand, and support other team members who are hired after them. Overall, these two roles should be taken on by people who are 100% into what you're doing and believe in your mission. You can usually tell in the interview process: their eyes light up, they have ideas, they can tell you why your industry matters, there's a genuine enthusiasm. Nothing can replace true buy-in from your employees. Questions? Feel free to DM me. P.S. Dying to know where social management comes in because you hate it and don't want to do it anymore yourself? That's your third hire but there are plenty of tools to make this easy on yourself. More on that later.

 Hot Take: Hiring Experts Isn't Enough—You've Still Got to Show Up You can hire the best social media manager, content creator, digital strategist, and their grandma's dog walker—but guess what? You're still not going to see the results you crave unless you, yes YOU, show up for your audience. It's your voice that resonates. Sure, your hired guns can craft killer content and optimize your strategy. But it's your voice, your story, your "reason why" that truly resonates with your audience. People connect with PEOPLE, not just polished posts. Your unique perspective, your quirks, your story—they're what sets you apart in your field. No amount of outsourcing can replicate the magic of your personal brand. I'm not saying you should be a one-person army (we all need backup sometimes). But finding the balance between outsourcing tasks and showing up personally is where the magic happens. Let your team support your vision, but don't lose sight of the power of your personal presence. #socialmedia #socialemediamarketing #socialmediastrategy #digitalamarketing #socialmediamanager #contentcreation #contentstrategy

A Marketer goes on a date. After a few min of Hi, Do you like this weather and all. Girl: So what do you do for a living? What is your role? Marketer: I am not a writer but I write. I am not a video editor but I edit videos. I am not an email specialist but I write emails. I am not a Social Media Expert but I grow Social handles. I can't do Meta Description but I know Google's language. I am not HR but I hire for Marketing roles. I don't know budgeting but I give a budget for every campaign. So just for your ease of understanding of my role, You can call me as JUST A MARKETER 🙂 What would you add more? - - - - - Like what you read? Follow Karthick Raajha and hit the 🔔 DM me if you need help with Marketing. #Marketer #MarketingRoles #LinkedIn

Over the weekend, I was able to go to the market and let me tell you, Going to duste market is always a vibe! Because apart from getting access to the cheapest thrift items, you can also get marketing ideas from sellers at the market, because those people mouth too sweet! Jesus 😂 From the “aunty buy o,” to “my color, this one go fit you,” these people have perfected the art of catching the attention of customers, this brings us to our marketing lesson of the day- hooks. Hooks are basically just a way to capture the attention of your target audience. In the world of social media where your audience’s attention span is non existent, the importance of a putting out a good hook Cannot be overemphasized! Here are 2 things to put in mind when coming up with one: 1. Understand Your Target Audience: Knowing your audience's interests, pain points, and desires is crucial for crafting a compelling hook that resonates with them, this enables you to call them out and grab their attention! 2. Create Curiosity or Intrigue: A great hook sparks curiosity and makes people want to know more. Use unexpected elements, questions, or intriguing statements to grab attention. Don’t have the time/ patience to create compelling hooks or content? Hire a social media manager, and with over three years of experience, I am the perfect candidate for the job! Send a dm to get started.

Many CEOs, sales managers, or marketing leaders say some variation of "Our content sucks." They may be blaming: • the writers - "They don't know the industry." "They don't have experience." "They don't know SEO." • the content team and/or individual contributors leading the efforts. • the competitors who are writing better content. These are probably NOT the issue. What IS the issue? ✅ Deeply knowing your buyers - not how old or educated they are, but what keeps them up at night. ✅ Lack of clarity about editorial themes, your company's unique take on things, and your differentiator. ✅ Hiring the right people. Are you trying to make a blogger be your strategist? An intern be your social manager? ✅ Communication between teams: sales, digital, social, and content. Their work affects each other. Why aren't they talking? ✅ Instructions. Are you just flipping content to the writer or providing them with a content brief? My brief for blog posts is in the comments. Put these things in place and your content will start moving the needle. If you’re an LSP who wants to double down on your content strategy to drive revenue but doesn’t want to hire a FT content strategist, DM me. 🙋🏼♀️I have an opening next month.

Is your company so nitpicky in hiring that you're missing out on outstanding #socialmediamarketing candidates? As a #jobseeker, I'm seeing far too many companies posting virtually identical job descriptions for marketing and communications positions with one glaring difference: QUALIFICATIONS: * Must have X years of experience in [their specific industry or niche] Certainly some industries and companies need candidates with highly specialized experience, but in most cases, the fundamentals of marketing and communications don't change from business to business or industry to industry. The best social media marketers, copywriters, content marketers and communications specialists can adapt to whatever product or service you offer, whatever problems you solve and whatever market you want to reach. They are already adapting to day-to-day changes to algorithms, platforms and software. They are already developing content to engage different mediums and audiences. They are already adjusting calendars and strategies to meet the needs of an ever-changing landscape. So this goes out to all the talented #socialmedia marketers, digital marketers, copywriters, and comms folks out there trying to find a job: these companies don't know what they're missing out on. #digitalmarketingjobs #marketingjobs