A Social Media Manager is like a Swiss army knife.
But what does a social media manager do? What are a social media managers responsibilities?
I was thinking about what different people might expect from this person, and the result is this list of 26 different functions.
The list is pretty long, and in a corporate environment, you might want to split it up between several people.
So, here's what a social media manager is supposed to do and what do you need to put on social media manager job description if you want to get great candidates.
Creating Social media strategy
Creating a social media strategy is the key to your results. Making sure that you focus on the right channels and activities. Creating your user personas to target and helping your team to find tactics that lead to desired goals.
- Creating social media strategy – what is the goal of your social media presence and how you intend to get there? The strategy is the easy part. Execution matters
- Create budgets for your social media activities – when you have a strategy where you want to go, you need resources to get you there. How much is enough? What compromises you have to make?
- Work with internal stakeholders – sometimes you need to prove that your budgets are an investment that will generate positive ROI for the business. You need people who support your efforts.
- Plan your social media campaigns – When your social media strategy and budget are in place, then you can start to plan the execution phase. What will be the day to day activities to get you to the results you need?
- Recruit and manage the social media marketing team for your organization. Decide how much people you need. What social media activities do you want to keep in-house and what can you outsource to an agency or a freelancer?
- Manage change and adopt social media into your organizational culture. You can combat the declining organic reach in major social networks by engaging your team and co-workers to generate initial organic reach for your campaigns.
- Work with other branches of marketing in your company to integrate social media with all marketing. When different marketing activities support each other, then you get results that exceed your individual efforts. In this case, one plus one is often more than two.
Social media implementation
When you have planned your social media strategy and executed it flawlessly, then you need to measure the results. Increased awareness, more leads, sales, etc. These are the numbers by which you evaluate your performance. Take a look at the social media KPIs.
- Manage social media campaigns and day to day activities – Avoid micro managing your colleagues. Track results and keep communication channels open to deal with any issues that may come up in the dynamic social media marketing environment.
- Manage presence in social networking sites – Posting new content, answering comments, sharing material from important influencers, fans, and customers.
- Brand advocacy – Find bloggers, forums, and influencers to work with. Build a brand ambassadors network where all the members feel that their relationship with your is something special.
- Community outreach – go to the communities that discuss the issues related to your business. Help out people and engage with active members of the community.
- Manage blogger and other influencer outreach program – work with influencers regularly. Create a schedule when you contact them and a list of items what you can do to make your partners happy. Read more about influencer marketing.
- Engage in conversations and answer questions
Content Creation for Social Media
- Seed content into social networks – put your content where it has a chance to spread. Don’t post it only on your social profiles. Your message will spread on other people’s properties.
- Write editorial content – write every day. Write something that you can use as content. At least 100 words per day and 1000 words per week. This will get you to about 3 blog posts per month. You need more but that’s a start.
- Create and upload videos to Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram. Find your best performing content and create video versions of that.
- Post and comments on relevant blogs
- Create and maintain a social media editorial calendar and posting schedule
Content Marketing Manager Responsibilities
Somewhat overlapping with social media manager's tasks is a list of Content marketing manager responsibilities. It is long enough and no longer limited to creating content for marketing purposes only to warrant a separate post. Find out what they are…
Social media monitoring
When you have planned your social media strategy and executed it flawlessly, then you need to measure the results. Increased awareness, more leads, sales, etc. These are the numbers by which you evaluate your performance. Take a look at the social media KPIs.
- Develop benchmark metrics to measure the results of social media programs
- Analyze and evaluate social media campaigns and strategies
- Report on effectiveness of campaigns
- Monitor trends in social media
- Monitor the activities of main competitors in social media
- Monitor social space for brand and related topics and conversations
- Understand how the social media impacts search traffic
There are a lot more items you can include in the social media manager job description, but the list above should cover most of the social media manager responsibilities.
Building Your Social Media Manager Career
Read through this list when you go to a job interview. Check this list when you are negotiating a rise. This list will also be handy when you need an assistant. Make sure emphasize the scope of the work and its impact on the brand image.
Where ever possible show concrete results and contributions that you have made in each area as a social media marketing manager. Make sure your colleagues understand what the social media manager job description is.
Social media manager qualifications and experience
Here are some of the requirements and experience that you can usually see in social media manager job postings.
Specific social media manager skills
- 3 – 6 years experience in social media marketing and/or PR
- Experience of developing strategies across social media and digital marketing areas
- Experience in outreach, sales, grassroots, social media, digital PR, buzz building and building sustainable communities.
- You have to be a social media power user and have a proven background building a quality online following for a business.
- Experience using social media analytics tools and the ability to tweak marketing strategies based on findings.
- Creative skills for contributing new and innovative ideas
- Ability to create cutting-edge social media and digital marketing content.
- Writing, blogging and proofreading ability
- Experience with social advertising platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube
- Experience of managing website content
Organizational skills of social media manager
- Strong organizational skills and communication skills a must.
- Ability to work well under pressure and meet deadlines
- Capacity to prioritize and work on multiple projects
- Ability to work independently and flexibly
- Attention to detail and accuracy
- Proactive and resourceful with a ‘can-do’ attitude
Sometimes there’s an educational requirement that is usually bachelor's degree or higher on marketing or business.
Three Core Characteristics of Good Social Media Managers
Big businesses need a lot of different managers to be successful. Every department and every function needs a manager. So, it’s not surprising that the rise of social media has created the rather specialized role of social media manager. The definition of the role is the management of social media communication. The activities include representing the brand, monitoring, and responding to mentions online.
Finding someone to fill the role is not always that easy. There are a lot of people who fancy themselves as social media managers. They think that having Facebook and Twitter accounts is all they need for a glittering managerial career. The role requires a lot more savvy than that. There are some characteristics that good social media managers have in common.
Passion
The first trait is an obvious one. Good social media managers must have a passion for social media. They should be active on more than just Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. They should have a personal blog with comments. They should be able to spot promising social media platforms and be able to get on on the ground floor. Those who recognized Pinterest’s potential are laughing. They should be present on some niche social media sites that relate to their interests.
These interests should closely resemble those of the company or organization concerned. An animal rights group should vet all social media manager applicants to see that they’re not on any hunting related sites. A florist ought to see if applicants at least follow other plant/flower/gardening people and if they belong to a network like The Garden Geek.
Communication
Social media managers need to be good listeners, and they need to know where to listen. Listening means paying attention to forums, sites like Wiki and Quora, complaint portals, social media platforms, and blogs.
And, they also need to be good at offline communication. Social media marketing managers will have to work with a social media team or some other members of staff to ensure consistency and implement ongoing training and education sessions. That ensures everyone is aware of new developments and trends.
Good social media managers will make an effort to meet up with other power users in the area, as well as attend events, seminars, conferences, launches and network with relevant industry professionals. Much like traditional marketing, PR and branding expert would do.
Social media manager responsibilities require flexibility
Adapting fast to changing environment is a prevalent need in all industries but is particularly important in the digital/social media world. It means a willingness to work outside of traditional hours. It means being available or on-call 24/7. Social media managers need to be able to react to developing situations immediately, even if those situations develop at 22:00 on a Sunday night.
Flexibility also means that social media marketing managers need to be really good with mobile technology. They should have a clear understanding of how to manage social media accounts on mobiles.
Flexibility also refers to an ability to think on their feet. Ability to adapt to changing situations and ability to (admit to and) learn from their mistakes.
Social media managers need more than passion, communication, and flexibility to succeed, but without these three core characteristics, most social media strategies are dead in the water.
Check out the related posts:
- 48 Social Media Key Performance Indicators
- Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
- 7 Free Facebook Page Creation Tools
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