Like any other senior marketing position, being an effective Social Media Manager calls for a diverse set of abilities to produce interesting social content that will turn as many viewers into repeat customers as possible.

If you want to get into social media management but don’t know where to begin, this post will help you zero in on the most important abilities you’ll need to develop.

Who exactly is a “Social Media Manager”?

A social media manager is someone within an organisation who is responsible for overseeing and directing all social media activity related to a particular product, brand, company, or person.

It is common to refer to a company’s social media manager as the “voice of the company.” This position is also known as a “Digital and Social Media Manager” or “Community Manager,” although the latter term is more commonly used today.

The duties of a manager of social media

A company’s social media manager is responsible for managing the company’s presence across a variety of social networking sites, including the creation and distribution of promotional content, the dissemination of company news, and the execution of marketing campaigns. Make sure everything is in order with a digital marketing campaign checklist.

They are able to use both free and paid tools, as well as the most important metrics to monitor on social media, and respond to questions and comments in the established tone of the company. Managers of social media platforms spend their days creating fresh content, testing out new formats and ideas, and analysing their results.

In order to land a job as a Social Media Manager, most employers look for candidates with at least a bachelor’s degree in marketing, public relations, or a related field. Glassdoor reports that the average salary for a Social Media Manager in the United States is over $46,000 per year.

The pace is fast, and there are many responsibilities to juggle in a single day. Among the many duties of a Social Media Manager are:

Develop content for various online mediums; strategies that work to increase visibility on Facebook may not do the same for Instagram. Evaluate the best forms of content (video, gif, infographic, blog, etc.) for distribution on each platform.
Keep an eye on your social media analytics to see which of your campaigns are bringing in the most traffic and sales.
Prepare a plan for using social media to advertise a sale or a new product, which may involve starting from scratch.
Verify the Return on Investment (ROI) – Create a report to monitor the progress of your new campaign after you’ve established quantifiable goals for all of the channels it will use. In order to achieve your goals without going over budget, you should use a social media campaign calculator.
Set a schedule for your social media updates; different networks have different “ideal” posting times. In addition to saving time, scheduling posts in advance also ensures that content is published even if you and your team are fast asleep while your audience is still awake and engaged.
Seek out carefully curated content — some of your social media updates should address relevant, current events. Find and share relevant third-party content by conducting research.
Participate in conversations with your followers; that’s the whole point of using social media in the first place. Therefore, address any feedback and questions from your customers.

These are only some of the possible things you’ll have to do. Keep your content calendar and social campaigns organised because every day is different online.

You can get the direction you need and the advanced skills you need for a management position by enrolling in a social media course online.

Competencies Required of a Successful Social Media Manager

Now that you understand what a Social Media Manager does, it’s helpful to know what abilities will help you succeed in this position.

Writing

Managers of social media accounts often have to write multiple updates per day. Additionally, the writing style needed for each social media platform is unique. Comparatively, while Facebook encourages a more casual and humorous tone, Linkedin calls for more of a serious and businesslike approach. The ability to write SEO-friendly copy is also invaluable.

Here are a few examples of significant forms of writing:

Writing catchy headlines that aren’t too long
interesting prefaces
Captions for videos and pictures
Text formatted for ease of comprehension

Research

Managers of social media accounts need to be in the know about everything happening in the rapidly evolving field of social and digital media. New measurement and analytics tools, global and regional developments, and monitoring the actions of key competitors on a daily basis are all examples.

The best social media managers use Google Alerts on trending topics in addition to other tools like Feedly, Ahrefs, and BuzzSumo. Hashtag analysis, the Twitter Trends sidebar, and the ‘Discover’ tab on TikTok are all helpful tools.

Expertise in Social Media

A solid grasp of social media is a must for any manager position, and that includes social media management. These can be learned through study and practise, but if you want to work for a major corporation, you should have at least a few years of experience under your belt first.

To get ahead of the pack, you’ll need to know things like:

• The ability to identify which types of content perform best on which channels
• Being aware of the best times and days to post on each platform
• The ability to optimise content for a given platform
• Analytical and performance expertise in the realm of social media
• The skill of interacting with online communities by means of social media posts using the most advanced and cost-free audience-listening tools available

A Mind for Pictures

Though written posts will make up the bulk of your social media content, images are just as important. You need to know how to make content that works well on each social media platform if you want your videos and photos to go viral.

To make your social media posts stand out, it helps to have some experience with graphic design as a social media manager. To keep up with the constant stream of new memes that appear online, Know Your Meme can be useful (if appropriate for your company).