A career in social media management, or SMM, can be pursued in a variety of ways. Although the conditions required differ depending on the business’s needs, becoming a social media manager frequently involves a combination of knowledge and skills.
Being a social media manager is a dream field for many people. The internet is filled with discussions about this business, career, or job, and many people desire to pursue it but are unsure of where to begin.
They don’t understand the duties and abilities required of a social media manager, therefore I’m going to help you with all of that in this post so you are able to start how to manage social media.
Duties Of a Social Media Manager
I want to start by listing the real duties of a social media manager because they might differ significantly based on the company you work for and the agency’s or brand’s focus. As a social media manager (SMM), you are likely to perform the following typical tasks:
- Creating content calendars is a major first step.
- Content scheduling and publication
- copywriting for newsletters and social media postings
- Organizing influencer marketing efforts
- Managing the community (such as answering messages and comments and monitoring for issues to report back to the team)
- Generating analytics-based weekly or monthly reports.
- Producing material (such as images, graphics, and user-generated content)
- Managing all social media platforms for the brand or business.
Those are some of the very common tasks that a social media manager does, but the core principle is that you should expect to wear many different hats because the list could be even longer and shorter depending on who you’re working with.
The listed ones are just some of the ones you can expect to see very often.
How to acquire the skills to acquire before you can be called a SMM
Social media management Online courses:
They are a fantastic resource, and many of the big players and platforms like Google, Hubspot, and Facebook have their own free courses and certifications that you can take to become an expert in SMM and I highly recommend taking advantage of these—especially the ones that give you a certification—because once you’ve completed that course, you can add it to your resume and your LinkedIn for more credibility.
Second is copywriting
And this is probably the most underrated skill in social media marketing. Being able to easily deliver a message via the written word in a clear and concise way is a massive skill that not many people have, so definitely focus on building your copywriting skills and improving your ability to relay information and storytelling.
Third is design
At the very least an eye for design is compulsory if you must be a social media manager.
Luckily, with tools like Canva, anyone can get the job done, but having an eye for what looks good or the vision for that piece of content or the brand is a game changer.
Fourth is Analytics
The ability to interpret data provided. You don’t need to be a data scientist or a math wizard—but understanding trends and being able to explain them is very helpful.
Especially when you’re communicating with non-social media people, if you can deliver what’s happening or what’s going to happen in easy-to-understand terms, they’ll be far more likely to listen and let you do your thing when it comes to social media.
Lastly is Understanding How Different Social Media Platform Work
One of the most important skills is understanding how each social media platform works.
Any social media platform you work on will be far more successful if you understand the culture of that specific platform. What works on TikTok is different from what works on Twitter or Instagram, and your ability to understand these nuances is a cheat code for success as it’s going to bring more results.
So, start paying attention to the differences between platforms and use those when creating for those platforms.
These are the skills you need to have to be a good social media manager.