Social Media Naturals

Talented social media nat­ur­als are still rare.

This art­icle will explain the concept of social media nat­ur­als and why they could be an asset to your business.

As a digit­al strategist, I can often tell wheth­er someone work­ing at a com­pany “gets” social media. In my exper­i­ence, hav­ing a social media nat­ur­al in charge of your brand accounts is more efficient.

How do you recog­nise a social media natural?

Here goes:

Social Media is Easy (For Some)

Having done my fair share of media train­ing, I’ve learnt that most people have their pre­ferred means of communication. 

In many ways, social media has opened up a whole new array of human com­mu­nic­a­tion forms, thus increas­ing the chances for each of us to find a par­tic­u­lar style of com­mu­nic­a­tion that suits our personality.

Social Media Naturals: Definition

Identifying and empower­ing social media nat­ur­als with­in an organ­isa­tion is often more straight­for­ward than you might think.

Here’s how to define social media naturals:

Please note: Social media nat­ur­als are not to be con­fused with influ­en­cers:

Sure, most online influ­en­cers are also social media nat­ur­als — but not all of them. Influencers are influ­en­tial online not because of their cap­ab­il­ity for social inter­ac­tion but their abil­ity to attract and enter­tain an audi­ence.

Social media nat­ur­als don’t need large fol­low­ings; they use social net­works to con­nect deeply with oth­er like-minded people around their pas­sions and interests. 

Read also: The Influencers in Public Relations

Why Social Media Naturals are Valuable

In future gen­er­a­tions, almost every­one will be a social media nat­ur­al. But until then, organ­isa­tions will have to find — and hire! — them.

Hiring a social media influ­en­cer to execute the digit­al strategy can be a hit-or-miss enter­prise. I’ve seen this sev­er­al times from a close-up perspective. 

Influencers tend to care mostly about their brands; for them, it’s always about pos­i­tion­ing them­selves in the mar­ket­place. However, a niched social media nat­ur­al can find an organ­isa­tion with match­ing passions.

Identifying social media nat­ur­als with­in an organ­isa­tion is often more straight­for­ward than one might think. This is because they can­’t stop con­stantly inter­act­ing on social media with the top­ic of their interest. 

Many organ­isa­tions have experts who are already using social media to dis­cuss and con­nect, but no one might have invited them to con­trib­ute pro­fes­sion­ally to the organ­isa­tion’s social media strategy.

How To Empower Social Media Naturals

When look­ing for a com­munity man­ager, I always invest­ig­ate their per­son­al social media presence. 

I’d look not for massive fol­low­ings but for the ease of use, pas­sion, and will­ing­ness to exper­i­ment. I’d look spe­cific­ally for someone with no prob­lems find­ing the right ton­al­ity for vari­ous social media situations.

Once with­in the organ­isa­tion, I’d sug­gest cre­at­ing a frame­work well-suited for social media naturals:

A shared vis­ion and dir­ec­tion. A social media nat­ur­al isn’t neces­sar­ily a stra­tegic geni­us; they often need detailed roadmaps of their expectations.

A shared idea of what con­sti­tutes suc­cess. While a social media nat­ur­al might suc­cess­fully cater to a brand audi­ence, they will need meas­ur­able objectives.

A shared under­stand­ing of cre­at­ive free­dom. A social media nat­ur­al must be allowed to deploy their tal­ents; micro-man­aging them will rather defeat their pro­fes­sion­al purpose.

PR Resource: The Follower Contract