The businesses that get the best results from their social media manager aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets.
They’re the ones that understand how to work with them.
A social media manager isn’t just there to schedule posts.
They’re there to bring ideas, spot opportunities, build campaigns and help your business get noticed.
But there are certain things that make their job much harder than it needs to be.
If you’re thinking about hiring a social media manager, here’s what they secretly hate… and why avoiding these mistakes will help you get far better results from your investment.
Your social media manager hates it … When you say no to their ideas
Did you hire a social media manager for their ideas?
Or so you could tell them to post your ideas?
It was probably the former.
One of the biggest frustrations as a social media manager is all the amazing ideas that get left on the table.
Not because they’re bad ideas.
But because someone says no or puts blockages in the way.
When you look at a business that’s using a social media manager, one thing you’ve got to remember is that the account you’re seeing is probably only 50%, 60% or 70% of the vision that social media manager actually had.
Every account has content that never got approved. Videos that never got filmed. Campaigns that never happened because someone didn’t listen to the social media manager’s ideas or didn’t quite get the idea.
So if you’re looking at an account and thinking, “F**k me, they’re absolutely killing it on social media,” … imagine how good it could have been if the business owner, the team or the people making the decisions had simply said yes to every great idea the social media manager came up with.
Your social media manager hates it … When you say yes to an idea, it works, then you refuse to do it again
Perhaps even more frustrating than someone saying no to an idea.
Is someone saying yes to an idea, then watching it outperform every piece of content in the last 6 months.
And then when you want to use that same magic formula for another post, they say no.
As social media managers, we always aim to get a client more visibility, more engagement and sales.
And yet so often things stall because an idea works and then we get a no for a follow-up.
If there’s an idea that works, rinse that idea until the audience gets bored and then move on.
Your social media manager hates it … When they have to chase content up
A social media manager without content is like a …
… Chef without ingredients
… Plumber without pipes
… Artist without paint
They can’t do their job properly without the essentials.
If a social media manager is asking for content by a deadline, they’re asking because they need it by a deadline.
They’re not asking because they need it 3 weeks after the deadline.
Your social media manager hates it … When you ask them to share an AI poster / graphic
This is very much a 2025 / 2026 problem.
But it’s come up a couple of times already this year for us (despite me being very vocal online on how bad AI posters look).
One thing that business owners need to remember is:
‘AI can create a poster for you.’
Yes, but… is it going to be a good poster that represents your brand well?
A good social media manager will tell you the downsides of AI posters, but if you insist on them posting it, don’t blame the social media manager for any negative comments on social media from the audience.
Your social media manager hates it … When you post random posts in between their own posts
I’ll be honest – this isn’t a problem for us these days.
But in the past we’ll have randomly been sat there at 2:37pm and thought, why had that post gone out on the grid when our planned piece of content is due to go out 2 hours later?
For our clients, when we have the content, we try and plan out 3 weeks’ worth of content in advance.
And if we don’t have the problem of hearing no to our ideas or are waiting for content, there’s often sound reasons why certain posts will be scheduled for 4pm on a Monday, whereas other pieces will be going out at 8am on a Wednesday.
Don’t mess with the content calendar.
Your social media manager hates it … When you don’t tell them about something important
Probably one of the most important things customers need to know is when you’re open for business.
Now imagine if, for some reason, you decide that your hours will change this week.
And then you don’t mention that to the social media manager.
We have had times in the past where we’ve had posts go out for clients saying, “We’re open at 5.30pm”, and then a customer has replied, “I walked up at 6pm and there was a sign on the door saying, ‘We’re closed for staff training.'”
Even though it’s not the social media manager’s fault, as they haven’t been told, they’ll feel bad about this for hours, questioning how something like this could happen.
Your social media manager hates it … When you are always a bit last minute dot com
For most social media managers they have:
- More than 1 client
- Offer social media training
- Are regularly in meetings or delivering social media training
They can’t always be at call to post a last-minute post for something important at 11am when you ask them to at 10.45am.
The worst example of this over the years was a hospitality business we worked with.
We’d sat down with the client to plan the launch campaign.
We got our designer to design countdown graphics to lead up to opening day.
The date kept getting decided and delayed to the point we couldn’t use any of the graphics or lead up to the launch day.
Then, at 10.45am, we got a text: “We’re opening today at 11am. Can you let people know on our social media?”
I was in the middle of a training session and couldn’t just stop everything, and I couldn’t get any launch day content as I was busy all day.
That’s extreme, but there are so many last-minute dot com posts that can’t go out.
Everything can be planned for.
Your social media manager hates it … When you compare your results to a competitor who’s spending ten times your budget
“I’ve been looking at XXX and I think we should do something like them. They only post once per week, but we can do something like that.”
What I had to then say with a straight face was, “They have 10 outlets in the biggest shopping centres in the UK. They have a full-time in-house marketing team, plus bring in photographers, videographers, graphic designers, copywriters and PR firms. Their budget is 100x what you’re paying 1 person here to do.”
The frustrating thing here was even though they had a minimal marketing budget, they were still one of the most visible businesses in their town, only spending money on social media and driving customers through the doors every single day.
There wasn’t anything more we could have done on the budget.
Your social media manager hates it … When you ignore their advice, then ask why the campaign didn’t work
Over 90% of our social media management clients will extend the initial 3-month contract.
Our longest client has been with us for over 13 years. The 2nd longest client has been with us for over a decade and the 3rd longest client for 6 years.
We do a great job.
But occasionally we’ll get to the end of 3 months and a client will say to us:
“Why didn’t it work, Alex? It’s not driven the results we expected.”
And then we have to outline how, when we sat down at the original meeting and said we were going to do XYZ and the client agreed, the client only provided 10% of what was actually asked for. As the other 90% was key to the campaign, it impacted everything.
Your social media manager hates it … When every post has to be approved by six different people
Can I talk for a moment about the flipside of having an active team on social media?
The “Too Many Chefs” problem.
I’ve been talking recently about the importance of getting the team involved on LinkedIn and the huge impact that can make for a B2B business.
The flipside is when everybody in the business has an opinion, everybody wants to be the social media manager and, as a result, nothing gets done.
- The strategy doesn’t get delivered: everyone has their own idea of what should be posted, so nothing consistent or aligned with your goals actually happens.
- The social media manager gets frustrated: they can’t do their job properly because every post becomes a debate or gets held up in approvals.
- The team digs their heels in: content only gets shared if it’s their idea, rather than supporting the bigger picture.
- Nothing changes: engagement stalls, campaigns flop, and the energy that could be positive just evaporates.
Getting your team involved is amazing when it’s managed well.
The key is balancing input with clear ownership and a structured process so your strategy actually gets off the ground.
Final Thoughts: Things Your Social Media Manager Hates
Hiring a social media manager isn’t just about finding someone who knows how Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok work.
It’s about trusting someone you’ve hired because of their expertise.
The best client relationships are built on collaboration.
Give your social media manager the information they need.
Trust them to do what you hired them to do.
Not putting blockages in the way.
If you’re looking for a social media manager, don’t just ask what they’ll do for your business.
Ask yourself whether you’re prepared to create the environment that allows them to do their best work.
Altrincham HQ is 17 years old in 2026 – we’re looking to work with 17 businesses to transform their social media marketing
NEED HELP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA FOR YOUR BUSINESS
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Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services
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Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk
