Social media marketing is vital to modern businesses, and employers are desperate to find social media managers who can take over these channels for their brand. So if you’re interested in considering this career path, what sort of skills will you need to succeed?
Writing skills
Social media writers invariably do a lot of writing, and they adapt their style for different audiences. It also helps to understand SEO principles. Many social media managers have previously taken journalism courses at providers such as //schoolofjournalism.co.uk/, because journalism courses help to embed top-quality writing skills. These can then be applied across a variety of professions and functions for best effect.
Research skills
Modern social media managers also need to be familiar with analytics and campaign management tools, as well as industry trends. The job involves assessing your own branded performance and also knowing what your competitors are doing. Many social media managers will assess this on a daily basis.
Customer service
If customers engage with a brand on social media without getting a good response, they will lose faith in the brand and be far less likely to engage with it in future. This is an area that many brands get wrong, because they simply think about outbound marketing rather than remembering to staff their social media channels to offer customer service, responses, support and more. Chatbots can be very useful, but most customers want the option to speak to a human customer service contact.
Social media platform knowledge
Different social media platforms work for different products, audiences and posts, so managers need to understand when to use a certain channel and in what way. The role requires plenty of market research and understanding, assessment, evaluation and creativity, to understand what customers want and then deliver it.
These are just some of the skills a good social media manager needs to possess to succeed in the role. It’s a fantastic career choice with plenty of options for progression and development, and looks only set to grow in 2025!
