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What It takes to be a social media marketer
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, SnapChat, YouTube and many more. Social media used to be a place where friends would meet virtually and share some good times but marketers have started noticing the impact of this new channel of communication and they are paying attention to it. From being able to sell things through social media to making major announcements, to defining some important moments in the country, to being an avenue for PR, social media can no longer be ignored and it has a potential to give any business a major boost.
You can be part of the revolution by helping companies and clients manage their reputation through social media, make sales, and build a community which can be very helpful in making some major decisions about the business. There are endless opportunities behind this platform that now defines modern communication.
But, just what does a social media/community manager do?
Job description
The key to achieving social media success is to build an online community, spark conversations, generate leads, among others. Here are particular duties that a social media marketer undertakes.
- Setting campaign strategies and goals
- Creating compelling and engaging visual and written content
- Managing the company’s online community
- Engaging with the company’s online community by listing to what they need and responding to their needs
- Creating leads for the company’s products by communicating about the products
- Measuring the results of various campaigns
Key capabilities and personality traits
- Creative and fast thinker: A social media marketer should be able to come up with creative posts that have the potential to go viral. They should also be fast thinkers so that they can easily jump on relevant trends and generate conversations or expand their online communities, as well as respond to crisis fast.
- Extroverted: It goes without saying that social media marketers ought to be outgoing as they need to actively interact and engage a company’s community both online and offline.
- Communication skills: It goes without saying that your communication skills need to be top notch. Most of the time, you will be the brand’s voice online so you should be able to communicate effectively.
- Analytical skills: Trends online are fickle and they change all the time. You should be able to analyse trends and the behaviour of your core audience so as to keep up. Use data extensively to make good decisions about your strategies.
- Actively keep up with changes in technology: Being a fairly new trend, things keep changing over time as social media marketing evolves. This means that you should always try to keep up with the changes by actively trying out new ideas.
Outstanding skills
While the above-mentioned skills really set one off to a good and rewarding career in social media marketing, you need to stand out from the crowd. Most people think that social media marketing simply involves putting up posts but it takes much more than that. To set yourself apart, you need the following skills;
- Analytics knowledge: You should be conversant with analytical tools such as Google Analytics and other analytical tools for individual social media channels. This helps you to gain insights into your audience’s behaviour and tailor your strategy to their needs.
- Having a network of influencers: It goes without saying that you will occasionally need to have influencers pushing your posts and brand on their channels so as to reach a bigger audience. This will especially come in handy when you are running campaigns.
- Graphic design and video editing skills: Visuals and videos are really important on social media. Therefore, to stand out, you will need to have basic skills in creating visual messages.
- Customer service skills: A great deal of social media marketing involves handling customer inquiries. You, therefore, need to have good skills in customer management in order to handle your online community well.
Roles in social media marketing
- Community manager: You are the bridge between the company and its online community. You are required to put up posts which engage and expand the company’s online community and lead them to the company’s website. Community managers are also responsible for increasing brand loyalty.
- Social media manager: They are responsible for designing and overseeing the implementation of social media strategies. They analyse trends and come up with strategies on how to maximise the trends and changes on social media.
Qualifications
Now that you know what exactly it takes to be a social media marketer, just what qualifications do you need to get into this field?
- A Bachelor’s degree in any communication field (PR, Journalism)
- A Bachelor’s degree in marketing
A job in social media marketing is exciting and definitely has a lot of new challenges as different platforms evolve. It takes more than simply posting on social media to be successful and you must have a clear understanding of the brand’s goals as well as your target audience.
