I used to think the hard part of managing SMM was making the role measurable.
In my retail business, I gave one SMM manager what looked like clear expectations:
2 posts per day.
At least 5 stories.
Reply to every comment.
Reply to every DM.
Create good content.
At first, it worked. The account became more consistent. Content was going out. Comments and DMs weren’t ignored.
But after a while, I noticed the gap.
The posts started turning into a similar-looking stream. The replies became short and mechanical. If someone asked about a product that was out of stock, the answer was often just that: out of stock.
No relevant alternative. No attempt to move the person closer to buying. No real continuation of the conversation.
I can’t really blame the SMM managers for that. Most of the people I worked with were talented and creative.
The problem was that I had defined activity better than I had defined quality.
I tried to fix it with better shoots, better locations, better ideas. It helped for a while. But I was still the most motivated person in the system.
Only later I understood that “good content” meant almost nothing on its own.
Good how?
Saved? Commented on? Asked about in DM? Tagged by customers?
What I really wanted wasn’t just regular posting. I wanted the SMM manager to see the same picture I had in my head: content that made people react, ask, remember, visit, buy, or at least feel something about the brand.
So I added quality metrics to the formula: organic reach, organic engagement, DM requests, user tags of the business account.
Not to make the role more complicated. To make “good work” visible. That was the real shift for me.
The formula wasn’t just a way to calculate pay. It became a way to move the standard out of my head and put it somewhere the employee could actually aim at.
Have you ever turned “I’ll know it when I see it” into something your team could actually aim at?