With varying consumer preferences and different online platforms to express these needs, businesses must devote attention to who might be best equipped to handle these valuable interactions. Social media managers can be marketers, strategists, copywriters, analysts, and customer service reps- at all once, and turning out to be a social media wizard is your most important task.
Managing a number of diverse responsibilities requires social media managers to master critical and basic social media skills. A pro will know how to bring these skills to the table, both types of which take time and effort to develop. Complex abilities like copywriting and data analysis can be more easily studied and trained, whereas soft traits like networking and being organized may be more difficult to master but are just as important.
The best part of working as a social media specialist is that you’re never done learning. You will constantly refine and develop your skills no matter when and where. To make you understand what makes a great social media manager, here are x skills you need to master.
- Writing & editing
While there are a number of skills that can help you express your voice across socials, the spirit of communication always comes back to the written word.
A knowledgeable social media manager is an excellent copywriter and brilliant online conversationalist, one that’s capable of embodying and enhancing their brand’s voice on social media. From social banter to powerful ad copy, a social media manager should also know how to write clear and concise copies that engage. Skilled social media writers also know to tailor their content for different categories of people and platforms. For instance, while Instagram lets you use up to 2,200 characters in your captions, recent findings show that the most engaging length is for captions between 138-150 characters.
But more than writing, if you want to put the best foot forward for a brand, you must be able to post content crafted with zero grammatical errors. Having an eye for detail means that you will be able to spot spelling or grammar errors before hitting “send” on a post.
- Outstanding communication skills
A social media manager must be able to communicate effectively and fit any platforms, media audience or character count. For instance, as the voice of your brand, you need to be able to drop a task at a moment’s notice to handle a customer complaint or take on a trending topic. And writing won’t be your only means of communication: you’ll also be using emojis, GIFs, video, stickers, and whatever works to get your message across.
On the other front, you also have to be able to communicate with your employers, peers, and collaborators across teams. You should be able to convey your strategies, content distribution plan, and impact of your work. If communication is already your biggest trait, and you love being in charge of social media marketing efforts, don’t hesitate to get a job in social media.
- Excellent data scouring abilities
While professional social media managers excel at being creative, they also need to be capable of working with numbers. Social media sites provide great amounts of data (oftentimes too much), so it’s important to be able to comb through lots of data and find the most actionable insights. Brands and businesses are investing heavily in building their social media presence – and the resources to support them- and they need to know what that investment yields.
That means you should familiarise yourself with Google Analytics, Twitter Analytics, and Facebook Analytics. These services offer critical insights into your latest social media effort. Learn how these tools work and the analytics they’re highlighting – like demographics, growth, and engagement.
Those of you who have been working in marketing for a while might be wary of data and its effect on the performance of social media campaigns. Thus, presenting accurate and quantitative data will provide value to your social media efforts.
- Ability to judge between good and bad design
Given the importance of the visual features on social media ( especially on Instagram), social media managers should be able to judge between good and poor design.
Obviously, they don’t need to master web design themselves, but having an eye for detail and being aware of the latest trends in photo editing makes it much easier when collaborating with web designers and offering constructive feedback.
Besides an eye for aesthetically pleasing and engaging content, a social media manager should be aware of the current events in pop culture. From trends to memes, social media is made of current events. We can see that happening on social platforms like TikTok.
You can have your fingers on the pulse of what’s happening by following the latest trends on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube and the best content creators.
- Outstanding planning abilities
As a social media manager, you should understand the bigger picture and how you can use social media to meet your overall objectives.
That means you should be able to do the following:
- Set goals and strategize to clarify the vision of your brand
- Know your audience and pinpoint which platforms to use
- Know your social media marketing tools
- Execute your plans
- Estimate and make all the adjustments necessary based on the results at hand
When it comes to managing a content calendar, there are many elements that are subjected to change. This is why planning and scheduling is a time-saving feature for many social media pros.
Social media managers should be highly organized individuals who enjoy making systems and can handle context switching without minding.
Now that you know what you need to become a professional social media manager, you’re one step closer to launching your first job in social media. What’s next? Master these traits and learn the tools you need to collect real-time data and engage with your audience across different social platforms.
