All You Need To Be A Social Media Manager

  All You Need To Be A Social Media Manager

Social media expert or managers are persons within an organization who oversee an organization’s social media strategy in order to boost visibility, engage customers and clients online. They can render customer services too, for the company.

They also create an online presence for the organization by producing good content, developing strategy, analyzing usage data, facilitating customer service and managing campaigns.

Depending on the main focus of the organization, social media managers are the organization’s spokesperson, voice, digital marketer or public relation person. Because social media managers bear the  online burden of the company, they need to understand the company they represent very well.  

 Social media managing can be a particular role assigned to one person, or, in SME businesses, it can be combined with other digital marketing duties. While there are agencies and freelancers who can handle the role for a company, it is often seen as a branch of digital marketing.

Responsibilities of a Social media manager

Social media managers do the following:

Ø  Creating captivating contents to build engagement

Ø  Managing the day-to-day handling of the company’s social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube, and tweaking contents to fit into different channels

Ø  Plan content calendar and schedule them across the different platforms using scheduling tools such as BusinessSuite, Sprinklr, Hootsuite,Olapic and Asana.

Ø Develop and launch new campaigns that promote your organisation’s brand and awareness

Ø  Build and maintain key relationships with influencers across the social media platforms

Ø  Carry out audience research

Ø  Increase number of the client’s followers

Ø  Train, motivate and mentor junior staff

Ø  Moderate social media communities by responding to comments and questions about the company

Ø  Monitor, analyze and report on performance on social media platforms using tools like Google Analytics and Facebook insights

Ø  Researching and evaluating new trends and techniques in order to find better ways of measuring social media activity

Ø  Monitor and analyze competitors through their online activities

Ø  Recommend improvements to increase performance

Ø  Carrying out customer services for the client

Ø  Manage social media activities within the company’s budget

Ø  Educate coworkers on the use of social media where necessary (in-house role

Ø  Encourage collaboration across teams and departments

Ø  Interacting with clients on telephone, email, or one on one meetings (mostly agency role)

Salary of a Social media manager

The expected salary range for a junior social media manager is likely to be between £18,000 and £25,000, depending on your experience, country and the company.

 Experienced social media managers can pocket upwards of £30,000. Freelance rates vary depending on experience, but typically range from £15 to £25 per hour.

Salaries tend to vary depending on a number of factors which may include location, the sector of  work,  the type of organization you are working for (eg agency, contract/freelance or in-house), your experience, and the success of your past social media campaign activities.

Though the income figures stated above are intended as a guide only.

Working hours of a social media Manager

You can work as a freelancer, putting in the number of hours and clients you are comfortable to live with. There are freelancers who work more than 10 hours a day, though it may not be all day, that is why it is freelancing.

Working full-time too is common, when you are working as an agency or as a company in-house staff. You can work the normal office hours, 9am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday or make it flexible by working remotely on some days of the week. It depends on how you want to structure your time, your agreement with the company and what makes you productive.

What to expect as Social Media Manager

• The role of a social media manager can be intense as well as exciting, with the digital marketing industry constantly evolving, learning new things and keeping up with trends can be challenging, so get your mind made up to be challenged.
• You will need to get out from your screen sometimes to meet clients, attend relevant event and conferences
• Opportunities tend to be higher in major cities and in larger agencies.
• Self-employment, freelancing, and flexible working patterns is very possible

Qualifications a social media manager should have

Social media manager job has no set qualifications, though some employer requires an entrant to have a degree, while some will be comfortable with a certification (online or offline) from online course websites like cousera, udemy etc. 

Personal qualities, practical knowledge and experiences are often priced higher than degree sometimes by some employers

Graduates from any discipline can easily switch to social media managing roles, but knowledge in the following subjects can be particularly helpful:

• Advertising
• Business management
• Journalism
• Marketing (particularly digital marketing)
• Media and communications
• Public relations.

With social media managers being relatively new, many folks have gone into the field with certifications from agencies or training proof from a reputable company. I mentioned earlier that one can earn certification online, google has a 40 hours free course for digital marketing, which will be good place for a new entrant to start. You can more courses, free and paid to boost get more knowledge about it.

Your first role as a social media manager will probably be as a junior or assistant social media manager and you'll work your way up from there. It's also common to move into this role after gaining some experience in marketing, Public relation and advertising.  

If you have a degree and wish to further, you can work towards a postgraduate qualification in areas such as:

• Business intelligence and social media
• Digital and social media marketing
• Social media and interactive technologies.

Skill set expected of a social media manager

You'll need to have:

• Ø  Copywriting and editing skills for content marketing

  Ø  Understanding the basic principle and algorithms of SEO

  Ø  Able to bring innovative and creative ideas

  Ø  Good interpersonal relationship and communication

  Ø  Able to articulate abstract ideas clearly in written or oral from

  Ø  Team player and team leader

  Ø  Collaboration and networking skills

  Ø  organizational skills

  Ø  project management skills

  Ø  able to adapt and work under some certain pressure in order to meet deadlines

  Ø  skilled enough to analyze and interpreting some business data

  Ø  paying attention to detail

  Ø  dedicated, motivated and committed to duty

   

How to gain Work experience as an aspiring social media manager

Proof of work experience is very crucial to employers when looking for a social media manager.

To build a work experience, you can start working for yourself first. Create pages on the relevant social media platforms, use images, videos and infographics to build up a following. Write articles, professional looking articles on blogs. Track and document your posts and see which post made impact and why. Iterate the process and learn from them.  You can also build a personal brand on the internet and probably rank for your name when people search for you on the search engines. (professionals advice building personal brand on a website that you control and not just on any social media page)

You also need to show you can use social media in a professional way. Look out for part-time jobs, remote jobs, full-time job or internship opportunities around. Openings are often available with both small and larger companies.

Try contacting the marketing department of companies, digital marketing or social media agencies to ask for job opening or declare yourself available. You can also get information on what they expect from a job seeker.

Social media is a significant part of digital marketing, so experience gained in other related marketing roles is a huge plus and relevant.

  Who Employs Social Media managers

Almost every sector has a need to be online to interact with their customers, clients, followers or fans. From political parties to businesses, small, medium and large businesses to Household names, all has a need to be online. And if those pages or accounts are not managed by the real owners, they will be managed by no other person than social media managers or handlers. Below, I will list just few among many others:

1.   Fashion Business

2.   Food and restaurant

3.   Tech Companies

4.   Manufacturing Businesses

5.   Laundry and dry-cleaning businesses

6.   Delivery and errand services

7.   Hair, salon, Barbarshop

8.   Automobile servicing companies

9.   Organisations (profit and nonprofit)  Etc

You can work for a company as their social media manager. These are found mostly in large or medium companies. Employment is across diverse range of industries from fashion, government, health, food and entertainment.

A social media manager can work as a freelancer or for a digital marketing agency.  Digital marketing agencies may specialize in social media management or have a wider coverage of marketing

Tools for social media managing Software

There are tools that every social media manager should know and at least adopt one or two to ease the many responsibilities of a social media man

 1.      SproutSocial

2.     HootSuite

3.      Zoho

4.      MeetEdgar

5.      Loomly

6.      Sendible

7.      Buffer

9.      Eclincher

10.    Falcon.io

11.    Agorapulseager.

 12.   SocialPilot

13.    Later

 Professional development path

Keeping up with the best practices in technological related field is a development any serious professional should endeavor to have.  It is very important to constantly update skills and knowledge in social media related technologies. The world is moving fast and the danger of being left behind is always present. So, keeping close to some professional bodies, courses and companies will help to keep you updated and best equipped as a professional who knows his onions

Aside Institution owned certification which are often expensive, one can still find other avenues to keep his edge sharpened constantly. Joining social media forums, groups, subscribing to email newsletters, taking tutorials on Youtube or available free courses on learning websites and connecting with like minds on any possible social networks can also keep one in shape as a social media expert.

However, there are huge benefits in being trained and certified by a professional body:

 They include:

·       a. The chance to attend special conferences or events,

·       b. Opportunity to partake in mentoring schemes

·       c. Exclusive access to webinars to keep you up to date with trends.