Do you need someone to help with social media?

Depending on who already works for you and the nature of your business you may not need to worry about social media at all. On the other hand, you might find a little support can hugely benefit you. Find out what suits you and your business with our quiz

Find out!

Which statement best describes your relationship with technology?

Excellent. You're confident with technology and have no concerns about how to use it to best effect in your business.

Confident amateur - You're not exactly an expert but you know your way around a computer and are not afraid to try new things.

Wary - You can use technology to do what you need to do, but you do need a bit of time and training to get used to new devices and tech tasks.

Full on technophobe - Who knows why but you and technology just don't get on. Give you a pen and paper or a good old fashioned phone call any day.

1 / 5

How often do you use social media for personal reasons?

Often, it's part of day to day life

Fairly often, you're comfortable with one or two platforms

When necessary. You have at least one social media account that you use from time to time.

As little as possible. You either don't have an account or you have forgotten the login details.

2 / 5

Do you believe that social media is or could be beneficial to your business?

Absolutely, you know that it could / does bring huge benefits such as generating new leads, increasing brand awareness

Probably. You know it could / might be working, but you haven't really got good measures in place to know for sure.

Possibly. You know it might be beneficial but you're not 100% convinced and haven't really had time to look into it.

No. You've looked into it and the nature of your business means there are no real benefits to investing time, resource and budget into social media at this time.

3 / 5

How much time do you dedicate to social media in your business at present?

We have a planned strategy which is working well for us

Not enough, we'd like to do more but don't have the time

It varies, sometimes we do a lot, but we don;t always have time and the number of posts and time spent is not necessarily consistent.

None, it's not something we've allocated time for.

4 / 5

Do you have a good idea of which social media platforms might work for your business

Yes, we have spent time considering the demographics and styles of different platforms and considered that in relation to our target audience and brand.

A rough idea, but it would be helpful to look into this further.

I think so, but it can be quite confusing.

No idea at all.

5 / 5

The Guru

You seem to have a good understanding of which social media platforms work for your business and the benefits that it brings. You also seem to have good ideas for what kind of content to post and when. Your knowledge of your business combined with an enthusiasm for social media means that perhaps you are the best person for the job.

It is always worth ensuring that other team members are trained and habitually using and checking social media -- everyone needs a holiday and some time away from the screen!

The Technophobe

Your answers suggest a deep distrust or dislike of all things related to social media on an instinctive level. There's absolutely no problem with this, but it is important to realise that, whether we like it or not, social media is part of the world today and if you are not using it and haven't invested time in working out the cost of not using it, you are probably losing opportunities and reducing your competitiveness.

Having said all of that, if your business is thriving and you have a steady sales pipeline, you may not need to enter the fray.

What you do need to accept, however, is that this situation may change, for example, you may find yourself needing to find new ways to generate sales enquiries or you may have others bring your business reputation into question on social media. Do review the situation regularly and if you feel it is worth investigating, set up meetings with companies who can discuss options to take the pain out of social media and manage it for you.

The Overwhelmed Expert

You have a broad knowledge about social media and understand how important it is to your business. There's just one problem -- you don't have the time to create a social media strategy that works for your business and to consistently manage it.

Your options are to train up members of your team to do social media for you. It's a good idea to ensure you know which goals you want to meet and to produce social media content calendars with appropriate content. Then the trick is to measure how effective this is, and to give it time.

Social media takes time to work, and so measure over three months at least whether it is helping you to reach the goals you set out for it. Are the goals realistic.

If the idea of spending any time on it is difficult, some agencies will help you to prepare a strategy that you then implement in-house, they may even help to train staff. The other alternative is to outsource it. Find an agency who understands your business and who can do what you need to suit your budget and start out with a trial period. Good luck.

The Procrastinator

Some days you think that you really should be doing more with your social media, in fact, sometimes you do post for a while. But you're not convinced enough that it really benefits your business for you to commit time, resource and budget to a consistent strategy that you implement, measure and improve over time.

Social media takes time to work, and it's also important to know why you're doing it and to develop a plan that you can measure to ensure it really is worth your time. We'd suggest booking a 30 minute into your calendar now with some trusted colleagues or friends who know your business to make a list of the reasons for doing social media and the reasons not to. The decide. Either make a clear plan and commit, or just let it go. It is better to have no social media presence than an old page where no-one has posted for years and where no-one is monitoring comments from the general public -- that's like a dusty shop window.