Social media is a dynamic tool for advertising, and its popularity is multiplying day by day. If social media is not in your marketing strategies, you are missing out on one of the most effective and powerful tools available to you. Nowadays, people are not using the phone book to find services and products anymore. Instead, they ask their social media friends or use a search engine to get the desired products.
Social media is considered one of the most powerful tools as it offers a direct link to customers. All the traditional advertising media are inbound to get your message out, and you can’t get their feedback. Here social media allows customers to find your business. It is a high-standard and inexpensive tool as it costs only a fraction of what traditional advertising does. Posting up and uploading on social media platforms such as Twitter feeds, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn, Google+ pages, Foursquare, and Pinterest is completely free. So the cost of advertising per 1000 people on social media is far less than old media like billboards, radio, TV, trade show display exhibiting, etc.
Social media is also a direct link to industry leaders as linking with them is an excellent networking tool and a good learning opportunity. Local customers can also find you easily when you are associated with the industry’s best. It also enables you to build long-term relationships with your customers and gives you a chance to know them. If a company has a social media manager, it can improve the search engine ranking of its website as it is one of the best tactics for reaching the top of SERPs.
This article discusses social media manager skills that employers seek for this promising job opportunity. But first, let us know a little bit more about a social media manager.
Who is a Social Media Manager?
A social media manager is a professional who has expertise in executing, monitoring, filtering, and measuring the social media presence of a product, corporation, brand, and individuals. These professionals are considered as the “voice of the company.” The social media manager role can also be referred to as community manager. Before social media and the internet, their role was similar to “Public Relation Representative.”
A Social Media Manager develops a company’s social media strategy and manages its social channels. This involves Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. These managers analyze their campaigns’ results by tracking engagement metrics such as clicks, likes, and shares of their content.
Responsibilities of Social Media managers- They are responsible for crafting engaging posts, analyzing campaign operations, and communicating with people through the company’s social media platforms. These managers are always aware of what users are looking for in a brand and able to deliver that on all platforms simultaneously.
Social media managers need to effectively coordinate with different departments to organize campaign launches and other activities to analyze the growth initiatives.
Types of Social Media Managers- There are many types of social media managers that are categorized within the “Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing managers.” Some of the social media/community job roles are Copywriter, Digital or Multimedia producer, Social media Metrics analyst, News commentator and Curator, Customer service representative, Community Manager and Facilitator, Funnel Marketing Manager, Project Manager, Campaign Coordinator, and many more.
Skills Required to Become a Social Media Manager
A Social Media manager’s role involves a vast range of skills within it, such as he can be a strategist, a marketer, a copywriter, an analyst, one of the Best SMM Panel and a customer service representative. It is a challenging role that includes a variety of work on social media platforms. Managing all of these responsibilities requires social media managers a large set of skills in marketing and adjacent social media skills.
So there are several skills required to become successful social media managers, as mentioned below.
- Communication Skills- Social media is a communication platform at its core. So it’s important to have firm communication skills that can flex to fit any channel, media, platform, audience, or character. Communication skills involve direct messages of customers, virtual meetings, getting feedback, and writing a brief to kick off a creative project or compelling a social listening analysis to share with leadership.
- Writing Skill- A good writing skill is required with communication skill, as the core of good communication always comes back to the written words. The best social media managers are also the best copywriters and digital conversationalists who embody and enhance their brand’s voice on social media platforms.
- Creativity- Social media managers differentiate their brand in the saturated social media space with their creative skills. So they want to create content that is exciting, buzz-worthy, valuable through creativity that comes up with stand-out and new ideas.
- Traditional and Digital Marketing skills- A social media manager’s ability to connect social strategy to larger marketing and business goals is taking their career to the next level. Developing marketing skills and strategies to support the overall business goal is a challenge for them. So, it’s important to gain traditional and digital marketing approaches (events, email, PR, lead generation, etc.) to create a social strategy with business impact.
- Customer Care- This social media skill combines customer service, people skills, and an eye for uncovering opportunities. Being a social media manager, it is crucial to develop a social customer care strategy as more than 45% of consumers reached out to a company on social media channels.
- Making Connections- Making connections on a large scale is one of the most important parts of a social media manager’s work and operations. Establishing and creating digital relationships is still a core aspect of any social media manager’s approach. So it is also a necessary skill to keep understanding and connecting with your audience at the right time and right place.
- Data Analysis- A social media manager must also understand data analysis and knowledge of both quantitative and qualitative data. It is also important to be able to present accurate, quantitative data to give the value of efforts that qualitative data was often pushed to the side in order to understand the performance of social media.
So every social media manager should excel in all these skills to polish their career and make a great career path of lifelong learning that will be beneficial at every stage of your career.
