A few years ago, the role of social media management was nonexistent. Today, most companies have embraced social media as an effective strategy of acquiring customers and communicating with their clients via sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others.
What Does a Social Media Manager Do?
Social media managers are the face and voice of a brand on social media networks. One of their main roles is representing the company across a variety of social media channels. These experts give the company insight on how to develop an online presence. This online presence, in turn, creates brand awareness, consequently increasing sales volume.
Below are some duties of social media managers:
- Creation of content and marketing campaign strategy. Social media managers play a crucial role in creating visual design strategies for the company.
- Supports promotional strategies by giving crucial insights into adverts
- They implement and review the company’s social media marketing plan.
- They compile the company’s engagement strategy by responding to comments and inquiries from social media followers.
- They come up with a relevant conversion strategy that converts followers to loyal customers.
- Guide organizations on the best strategy that enhances the company’s presence in online social media platforms
- Support the development of the company’s brand identity by improving website traffic and optimizing brand awareness
What Skills are Needed to be a Social Media Manager?
Like any other senior management role in an organization, the role of a social media manager requires certain skills. As much as it seems like a simple role of posting ads on Facebook, the role goes beyond this, and therefore it requires more of the following skills.
Customer Service
Today, more than 34% of consumers refer to social media as their customer care option. Most customers contact an organization through their social media page, hoping to get a response on their query about a product or a service. If there is no answer (even if it’s at night or the weekends), the customers get a bad impression of the brand. Therefore, Social media managers must match the skills needed for satisfying customer care.
Copywriting
For a company to establish its online presence, the social media manager has to be involved in a lot of writing and posting of ads. But, for a scanning and skimming social media user to see an ad, it must be precise and crafted in an eye-catching manner. This is where copywriting skills are needed. Again, the tone and style required in various social networks differ. For example, on Facebook, ads tend to be casual and fun while on LinkedIn, ads are more professional.
Research and Experimentation
An excellent social media manager is always updated on the trends of the ever-changing social media world. As the brand online representative, you should research the upcoming tools others are using and what the competitors are posting. Experiment on these new findings frequently, to become a social media expert.
SEO Expertise
Although SEO is in a different department in an organization, optimizing your social media posts for SEO gives them a chance to be found by your target audience. Excellent social media managers must know this and always strive to optimize their content to attract a lot of readers who might turn into customers.
How to Become a Social Media Manager?
Below are some of the things you should consider doing to become a reputable social media manager:
1. Build Own a Social Media Following
Before you work for important clientele such as leading corporations and VIPs, you should first build an active social media presence. The first step is to create accounts with all leading social media platforms. One needs to use blogging skills, email marketing skills, graphic design skills, and SEO knowledge to build a steady and growing number of followers. Once one succeeds in marketing themselves as a brand, it will be easier to sell other brands.
2. Pitching for Clients
The next step is to pitch for the ideal clients and turn them into followers and loyal customers of a given brand. One should identify the platforms where potential clients hang out online. They should then use great content and engage the potential clients on exciting conversations that help drive high traffic into a specific website. It is also possible to find these clients in industry events, conferences, and networking functions.
3. Time Management
An excellent social media manager is a good timekeeper. One needs to multitask and achieve a predetermined daily goal when managing various social media accounts spread across different platforms such as YouTube, Google, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook. As a result, one must invest in a system that helps them organize tasks and complete client’s work on time
4. Learn Key Marketing Skills
There are crucial advanced marketing skills that one should learn. The skills enable an individual to gain an edge over their competitors. It may be necessary to invest in a short marketing course to acquire some of these skills. These techniques include:
- Customization of Facebook apps
- Customization of YouTube and Twitter headers
- Hashtag marketing knowledge and skills
- Webcasts, Google plus hangouts, email capture forms, and webcasts skills
- Optimization of YouTube videos with descriptions, annotations, titles, tags, and description
5. Mobile Presence
For any social media manager to gain ground and become a market leader, they must invest in a robust mobile platform. Customers should find and interact with them on their mobile devices, such as smartphones. It is essential, therefore, for one to ensure their websites are compatible with various mobile platforms. Existing and potential clients spend countless hours surfing the nets using their mobile devices. One should strategically place their brand where the clients can quickly locate to enable easy interaction.
6. Manage Funds
An excellent social media manager should know the right amount to charge a client. Markets vary from one location to another, and there is a need for one to be flexible when coming up with rates. The first step is to find out the rates competitors are charging for the same services. Afterward, one can decide to charge more or less, depending on the nature of the job. One should also adopt convenient payment methods for the clients to pay without much hassle.
Do you Need Help Managing Your Company’s Social Media?
To become an accomplished social media manager, you need not only creativity but also some skill sets, as seen above. On the other hand, if you are a business and need to grow your audience, it’s high time you hire reliable and well-known content marketing and digital marketing service professionals. If your business needs help maintaining your social media presence, consider BizIQ.
