In today’s world of digital marketing, social media is one of your most critical platforms. Your online presence can help you to build authority, develop your brand and interact with your audience to increase rapport and generate leads. For many small and medium-sized businesses, social media is unfamiliar territory. There is a common misconception that social media only targets a younger demographic, and by that logic, many believe that social media can easily be handled by intern team members or young and inexperienced marketers. To put it plainly, this idea is wrong. Being familiar with social media does not immediately make one qualified as a social media marketer

While interns can be valuable resources when utilized correctly, they should not be solely responsible for any social media marketing campaign, and here are five reasons why.

Interns Don’t Have the Experience to Manage a Marketing Strategy

Handing large projects and responsibilities to interns can be risky. This is mostly due to their lack of experience. Interns will have limited understanding of company structure, culture and leadership hierarchy. This can mean that their work is not aligned with your business needs, and it can also mean that they require more management than experienced staff members. It can take years of learning, trial and error, market research and comparison testing to develop the skills needed to perform successful social media management. If an intern doesn’t have these skills, why trust them to one of the most important aspects of your digital marketing strategy?

Social Media for Business is Vastly Different from Casual Use

An argument many interns use when selling their capabilities as a social media manager is that they are savvy to the various social networks and technologies that exist. While this might be true in limited context, their ‘skills’ won’t apply to social media for business use. The teenage and young adult demographic will typically use social media to share opinions and life events with a limited peer group. Posts and interactions are usually based on personal events and feelings and are not designed to generate views and interactions to develop a brand and market a product. In business, social media uses a range of tactics to generate leads, drive traffic towards sales funnels and promote a static brand with a variable product or service offering. Interns simply don’t have experience with social media within a business landscape, and they often don’t have the free time or initiative to continuously upskill themselves and hone their craft.

Interns Don’t Have an Understanding of Key Metrics

Marketing is nothing without the key metrics that are used to create insights and measure success and ROI. While interns may be able to successfully post and engage with your social media audience, they will rarely have the skills and tool knowledge that is necessary to develop an understanding of how social media marketing is increasing exposure, leads and conversions. This means that an intern’s marketing strategy will not be developed using hard data, and it will likely not evolve to meet the changing needs of your business. Why invest in a strategy that can’t be quantified with key metrics and performance indicators?

Interns Don’t Have an Understanding of the Bigger Picture

Understanding social media is one thing, but an intern will have a limited understand of your wider business, your brand and the message that you represent. Interns often lack the maturity and insight to be able to determine how their effort fits into the wider business strategy. This can result in marketing efforts that are isolated from your general strategy; therefore, they won’t be as effective.

Interns Don’t Represent a Consistent Resource

Consistency is key to any marketing strategy. This ensures that all aspects of your strategy are aimed towards a common goal while also allowing you to keep consistency throughout copy and other content, graphics and branding. Typically, interns are temporary team members, which means you will lose momentum with a high intern turnover rate.

Looking at these five points, it is clear that an intern-managed social media strategy would be detrimental to your business growth. When money and your reputation is at stake, you need professional social media management from experienced marketers who are business savvy.

At BMGcreative our passion is growing businesses through effective marketing campaigns. Social media is one of our focus areas, and we have a team of dedicated, full-time social media management professionals who can bring real knowledge, insight and proven strategies to your campaign. If you want your business to grow while receiving a significant ROI from digital marketing, you need professionals with the focus and experience to ensure that your targets are met. Talk to us today about any of your digital marketing needs, and avoid the expense and setbacks that would be almost guaranteed if you choose the wrong people for your social media management.