Social Media Manager – The Best Strategy to Succeed

“Advertising works most effectively when it is in line with what people are already trying to do.”

— Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms 

1. What is a Social Media Manager?

A social media manager is usually responsible for setting the content strategy and fostering engagement on a company’s social platforms. To be successful in that role, social media managers often need to have a skill to tell stories, a keen eye for design, and an ability to analyze what works well for an audience and what does not.

Social media has become a key area of ​​marketing thanks to its ability to reach and capture customers by learning more about their needs, wants and disappointments. It is ubiquitous across industries, corporations, brands, nonprofits, government officials, celebrities and more have accounts to communicate directly with followers, meaning that working as a social media manager can lead to a variety of fields.

Social media managers are responsible for representing a company across social channels as the brand’s only voice. They respond to comments, compile campaigns, and create content. These experts provide organizations with the guidance they need to increase their online presence.

With clear goals like “improving website traffic” or “optimizing brand awareness”, social media managers grow your business through social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. A decade ago, this role was non-existent. Now, more companies are embracing social media for customer acquisition and social management is often essential.

2. What does a Social Media Manager do?

Social media managers are ordinarily responsible for developing strategies to increase followers, creating and overseeing social campaigns, producing content, reviewing analytics, and communicating with key stakeholders in a company. 

As a social media manager, your specific responsibilities will depend on the size of your company. For example, while many social media managers at larger corporations typically approve copy or videos rather than create them, it’s common for social media managers at smaller companies to take on more content creation. 

If you’re interested in working as a social media manager, your tasks may include:

• Increasing followers and driving engagement: Boost a company’s profile on all active social platforms by increasing the number of followers they have and the amount of engagement (likes, comments, shares) they receive. You may be expected to develop written or visual posts to achieve both.  
• Strategizing content and campaigns: To drive engagement, you’ll be responsible for ideating (and sometimes executing) social campaigns that align with a company’s larger marketing strategies. You may also generate ideas for timely and evergreen content or repurpose user-generated content.  
• Analyzing data: In addition to creative work, you’ll also spend time analyzing data to draw conclusions about how a company’s posts and content are performing. This can include social listening monitoring what social media users say about a brand or competitors.
• Reporting metrics to key stakeholders: Companies want to know the work you’re doing has an impact, so you’ll likely be expected to report your achievements or any problems that arise to your marketing team’s and even the company’s stakeholders. They’ll probably be looking to see how you grow followers, increase engagement, develop creative content and campaigns, among other metrics. 
• Posting and monitoring social media platforms: Depending on the size of your team, you may be responsible for posting and monitoring all social platforms. In that case, you may need to schedule posts and observe followers’ responses. You may also be responsible for responding to comments and messages from followers.

• Social communication key: This role determines how often a company should post on each social channel and is responsible for responses.
• Support the development of brand identity: They show the “why” that helps customers resonate with your organization.
• Participate in visual design strategies: Whether it’s your profile pictures or team photos, a social media manager ensures that you visually match your brand.
• Support promotional strategies: Social media managers give you insights on paid advertising, organic traffic and influential marketing.
• Develop your engagement strategy: Your social media manager listens, responds, and engages with your audience across all channels. This increases sales and improves customer relationships through engagement.
• Set a conversion strategy: Your social media manager learns the points and concerns of followers. This helps them suggest how to turn fans into clients.

3. Social Media Manager Duties and Responsibilities

The Social Media Manager’s job focuses on increasing brand awareness through the effective use of social media outlets. A Social Media Manager is tasked with several key duties, such as: 

• Using social media marketing tools to create and maintain the company’s brand
• Working with marketing professionals to develop social media marketing campaigns
• Interacting with customers and other stakeholders via the company’s social media accounts
• Analyzing the company’s digital marketing plan and social media strategy and identifying strategic weaknesses and making recommendations for improvements
• Researching social media trends and informing management of changes that are relevant to the company’s marketing activities 
• Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) for social media campaigns, such as targets for a certain number of shares or likes and measuring a campaign’s performance against the KPIs. 

4. Social Media Manager Skills 

If you’re interested in becoming a social media manager, it’s a good idea to improve your skills in the following areas: 

• Writing: Whether you’re drafting posts or crafting captions, good social media writing goes beyond solid grammar and spelling. It will be important to hone your copywriting skills to develop compelling writing that fits into a brand’s story and voice and engages its audience. before applying to become a social media manager.
• Editing: Alongside writing copy, you’ll likely need to review your team members’ work and ensure it’s grammatically correct and error-free. Honing your copy editing and proofreading skills can help you develop the eye necessary to reassure a company or brand that they’re in safe hands. 
• An understanding of social media platforms: You’ll need to have a thorough understanding of several social media platforms—their strengths, weaknesses, and user demographics, among other characteristics—to manage accounts successfully. Knowledge of the following platforms will likely be most important: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok.
• An eye for design: Be prepared to communicate about images, infographics, videos, and more with graphic designers, marketing managers, and other marketing stakeholders. Envisioning a post and then articulating the business or strategic reasons for your choices will be critical. 
• Analytical tools: Knowing what messages resonate with consumers requires an analytical eye and the capacity to research. It’s helpful to know how to use social media listening tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and HubSpot, among others.
• Flexibility: Change is constant in the world of social media. New trending hashtags, algorithms, and platform features often require social media managers to think on their feet and incorporate novelty into their work.
• Timeliness: News events can cause some posts to be perceived as tone-deaf or insensitive or otherwise overshadow your post in importance. Staying on top of the news and the bigger conversations happening online can help you react accordingly and maintain an organization’s brand.

Best Social Media Platforms

1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. Linkedln
4. YouTube
5. Snapchat
6. Twitter
7. WhatsApp
8. TikTok
9. Reddit
10. Nextdoor

5. How to Become a Social Media Manager ?

Thankfully, most social media manager roles do not require a university degree. Instead, experience is the foremost requirement. If you’re seriously considering becoming a social media manager, here’s how to proceed.

5.1 Auditing your existing social media strategy

Then, you’ll want to set aside some time to audit your existing strategy. With a social media audit, you look at what’s working and what isn’t within your social media campaigns.

Typical steps within a social media audit include:

• Reviewing your social media goals
• Ensuring your branding across social media networks matches
• Compiling your social media metrics, like followers, engagement rate, and more
• Analyzing your social media metrics to find trends, like content preferences
• Reviewing your competitor’s social media presence
• And more

Your audit will provide immediate insight into your social media strategy. Plus, it’ll offer a foundation for improving your campaigns so you can achieve the results your business wants to see from social media, from more followers to better client satisfaction.

5.2 Researching your target audience

Investigating your audience is an essential part of managing social media. If your agency or company does not know who your audience is, this makes it challenging to develop a social media strategy.

Know who your audience is and you will know where to find them online. By targeting your audience on their preferred platform, you can earn a greater return on investment .

Invest in social media management services, and you can expect your account manager to ask about your target audience at the start. In some cases, an agency may take the initiative to ask about your target audience when you call to discuss their services.

5.3Choosing your social media platforms

Next, you will decide which social media platforms to use. Time is one of the most valuable resources when it comes to managing social media for businesses, so it is essential to focus your efforts on the networks that matter most to your audience.

While you should have a profile on major social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you should not divide your time evenly between them. Instead, prioritize social media platforms over what your audience uses.

You can find out which networks are most relevant to your target market by reviewing demographic data. If you conducted a social media audit, you can also refer to your engagement rates to see which networks performed best. Also check the competition activity.

5.4 Creating your social media strategy

In most cases, they’ll focus on building a strategy for each platform due to the different roles and uses of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media platforms.

In addition to considering your audience, they’ll also look at the following factors:

• Your goals: What does your business want to accomplish with social media? Do you want to build more brand awareness among consumers or establish brand loyalty among existing clients? Or, is there another goal you want to accomplish?
• Your industry: What do audiences in your industry want to know? Are there content gaps that your company can fill, such as with blog posts or guides that you can then share on social media? Or, are there industry leaders you can connect with on different platforms?
• Your brand: What is your brand voice? Do you have a set of standards or processes when engaging with clients in a public forum? Or, how does your branding influence the colors and media that you use?

5.5 Designing your social media profiles

This is why social media management services can also include social media design. This service focuses on creating professional images that capture your brand and make a great first impression on the user.

In most cases, social media design will focus on static images of your account, as follows:

• Your Twitter header and background
• Your Facebook header, icon, and profile picture
• Your Instagram profile picture

Once they’ve designed your social media accounts — and you’ve approved of the designs — your social media specialist can start working towards your marketing goals.

6. Why is Social Media Manager Important?

Social media management offers several benefits, including:

• Cost: No matter your marketing budget, social media is a cost-effective initiative. It’s free to join social media networks, post content, respond to user comments, and more. Even social media advertising offers a profitable channel for reaching your audience and building an online following.
• Reach: Social media networks, from Facebook to LinkedIn, can connect you with users across the world. You can also use social media platforms, like Pinterest, to reach niche audiences. Traditional marketing and advertising can’t match the reach or price or social. That’s why social media management is a must for businesses.
• Users: Incorporating social media into your marketing strategy allows you to align your marketing initiatives with user behavior.
• Performance: Marketers and business owners alike agree on the performance of social media marketing and advertising. Via social, companies can build their brand and even generate leads and sales.

The 5 Best Social Media Management Tools

• Buffer for straightforward social media scheduling
• Hootsuite for all-in-one social media scheduling, monitoring, and analytics
• MeetEdgar for automating your social media posts
• SocialPilot for small teams
• Sendible for an affordable option with all the features

In Conclusion

Like any job, a social media manager position is bound to have at least some surprising aspects. But if you are looking for a challenging, collaborative role that requires you to practice both the creative and analytical sides of the brain, a job as a social media manager may be ideal for you.