It’s needless to emphasise the role of social media in modern times. We are all aware of its importance for our lives, daily routines and even our choices and behaviors. Given this importance, no wonder people are trying to get a career out of social media knowledge. But what is it that you need in order to succeed?
Do you ever try to think of the chain of the people who work behind all the online marketing? When you buy an item you saw online, do you ever stop and wonder about the path of that item?
How in order for you to see it there, someone behind a smart screen had to boost an #ad, come up with creative content, whether textual or photographical so that he or she can sell the item to you, and convince you to buy it right after you see the item in social media?
Well, this is just one of the things that a social media manager has to do on a daily basis. With the sales that have gone completely online during the pandemic, their role is needed now more than ever – especially for brands and big companies who have to invest a whole lot of money to keep their virtual presence as attractive as possible.
But even before and after the pandemic, social media managers had plenty of flexibility. If they wanted to, they could manage multiple jobs at the same time, work from home, and become self-taught as long as they had the proper sources.
Moral of the story? You can become a social media manager too. And here are seven of the skills you need to own in order to become a successful one.
Copywriting
This should be you main and most important asset – writing well. This is important for marketing, presenting the brand, sales, discounts, announcements, simple promotions etc.
Copywriting is fundamental to a career in social media, as you will have to post content on Facebook, Twitter and other important platforms to reach a certain audience – hence, you have to know how to approach them creatively and properly.
On Buffer, they have great tips on copywriting specifically.
Customer Service Skills
So what we know of customer support people is that they’re highly amiable. They have great communication skills, they approach people finding the right words and attitude, and they’re pretty much on alert for giving and receiving any sort of community feedback.
As a social media manager, you should have a passion for community engagement, and expect to get involved with people from different backgrounds.
Design Skills
According to Hubpost’s study on How People Are Changing the Way They Read, Interact, and Engage With Content, it was found that social media posts with images receive more engagement and 43% of consumers want to see more videos content in the future.
This shows us that social media has moved way beyond the plain text and images. The major requirement currently is the expertise on creating engaging visual content, especially videos.
Public Speaking Skills
Surely everyone has noticed the rise of live videos and the excitement of marketers towards them. Why is that?
It is certainly the engagement level that reaches most audiences. Going live sparks curiosity, and gets people to check out the video – and turns out that Facebook live videos appear higher in the news feed when they’re live rather than when they’re not.
But to follow up with this trend, you should become comfortable enough with going live and connecting to your audience. There are numerous ways to enhance your public speaking skills, and the more you try it, the more the confidence will boost.
Good Knowledge on Behaviourism
Behaviourism is defined as a systematic approach to understanding the behaviour of humans.
Meaning, you should understand what your audience wants from your social media posts. And you don’t even need a degree on behaviourist psychology, as you can use your data and analytics to tell you which posts are doing better, why are they doing better, and how you can keep doing what you’re doing or move to something else if the audience is not responding properly.
The importance of understanding the psychology trends behind your posts is enormous, as the engagement of your audience and their feedback depends on it.
Interpreting Analytics
According to Buffer, the term, ‘Analytics’, refers to both social media metrics (e.g. likes, comments, shares, etc.) and business metrics (e.g. traffic, leads, conversions, revenue, etc.).
“A great social media manager is able to understand both types of metrics and tie them together to give an overall view of the company’s social media performance against business goals”.
Your goal as a future social media manager, should be to learn how to read and interpret data through different channels, so that you can help the company or brand to achieve its targets.
Strategy Planning and Creative Mindset
Yes, we’re going to put these two together as content creators and social media managers say that these pretty much follow one-another.
As a social media manager, you will surely be given a budget under which you must perform on. The challenge is to use that budget properly enough, and still manage to express curiosity and efficiency through your posts.
It takes a whole lot of creativity to plan ahead strategically and achieve the goals you or the company you represent aims for.
From our research, readers suggest that you search for more information on skills you need to have on the following sources:
- How to Get Hired as a Social Media Manager (and Then Rock the Job Once You Have It) [SSM03]
- 11 Helpful Resources for Improving Your Business Skills
- 10 essential skills a social media manager needs to have on their resume
- How to spend a social media budget
We’re sure these will guide you to other, even better resources in which you can get going and start learning. You can thank us later!
Photos: Shutterstock
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