Social media has become one of the most important marketing tools over the past two decades.
It gives businesses the ability to reach billions of customers on their most-used platforms. Social media has been adapted for commercial use so you can run targeted ads, segment your audience, and analyse user data.
Today, consumers look to social media as a way to connect with brands, whether they’re searching for new products and services, or need an answer to a query.
It’s no surprise companies hire specialist social media managers to take care of their digital marketing efforts.
In this article, we answer the question, what does a social media manager do?
- What is a social media manager?
- What does a social media manager do?
- Key skills of a social media manager
- Why you should hire a social media manager
- Social media management can help grow your business
What is a social media manager?
A social media manager is responsible for representing a business or brand on social media platforms.
Acting as the voice and personality of the company, the social media manager develops strategies, creates content, oversees campaigns, and handles the day-to-day activities on official social media accounts.
Many people assume that all social media managers do is watch out for the latest TikTok trends and post entertaining stories on Instagram.
Sure, that might be part of the job sometimes. However, the role of a social media manager is far more nuanced.
Social media’s importance in a company’s marketing strategy cannot be overstated. The person in charge must be strategic, creative, and analytically minded.
Social media strategy is an extension of the overall business plan.
Thus, the social media manager remains in tune with all facets of the business, especially when it comes to brand reputation, customer relationships, and growth goals.
A social media manager’s job is fast-paced and often unpredictable.
What does a social media manager do?
The specific roles of social media managers depend on the type of brand they represent as well as the size of the business.
Large corporations have bigger budgets, enabling them to create more ambitious campaigns and professional-level content.
Small to medium-sized businesses tend to be more hands-on with their approaches, bringing about unique challenges.
Regardless of the size and nature of a business, social media managers have the same general objectives.
They build strategies, grow social media channels, create content, analyse campaign performance, and work in alignment with the overarching strategic goals of the company.
On a day-to-day, month-to-month basis, what does this actually look like?
Here are some of the most typical activities expected of a successful social media manager.
- Set social media goals that relate to the overall objectives of the company. Social media managers may also create more generic or evergreen content to maintain engagement with followers.
- Create a range of diverse content that resonates with the target audience, such as infographics, Instagram Reels, TikTok videos, and more.
- Manage a social media content calendar that acts as the focal point of the long-term social media efforts.
- Experiment with different social media posts to determine what works best.
- Analyse social media performance and adjust the strategy if necessary.
- Keep up to date with industry trends and updates on each social media platform.
- Increase followers, likes, and other important metrics on all platforms.
- Manage social accounts by interacting with followers, responding to messages, and communicating with the target audience.
- Present insights and reports to company stakeholders, demonstrating the effectiveness of social media performance as well as future plans.
Key skills of a social media manager
If you want to hire a social media manager, understanding the role is just one part of the process. You must also know exactly what social media manager skills and attributes to look out for.
Pro tip: if you’re preparing for interviews, check out our article, 25 Interview Questions for Your Next Social Media Manager, to make sure you get the right hire.
Social media managers demonstrate a range of qualities through extensive skill sets.
They wear a number of hats and venture into a range of areas within the business, from sales copywriting to customer service. Some of the main skills a social media manager should have include.
Content creation
Having an eye for a good photo, shooting good videos, editing experience, and graphic design skills are hugely desirable attributes of a social media manager. Otherwise, these aspects of content creation will have to be outsourced. At the very least, your social media manager should have a solid working knowledge of these skills.
Source: Sendible
Writing and copywriting
Photos and videos are just one half of the equation. Social media managers should excel in storytelling, both visually and in written form.
From writing email newsletters to producing compelling Instagram captions, writing skills influence the audience and express the brand’s voice.
All copy should be grammatically correct and error-free.
Analytics
Data analysis is an important part of social media marketing. Your social media manager should be experienced with the analytics functions on each platform.
To boot, they must be astute analysts, capable of extracting key insights from social media posts for use in future activities.
Familiarity with tools
In addition to the in-app analytics, social media managers can derive even more learnings from management tools.
For example, Sendible’s social media management tool can generate reports for all major platforms quickly. These reports include combined audience analytics, providing a more in-depth look at your overall performance.
Community management
Between campaign development meetings and content creation sessions, social media managers must be active on business accounts to check notifications, engage with followers, and reply to messages.
Adaptability
As a social media manager, you never stop learning. There are constantly emerging trends, algorithm changes, and new features to keep up with.
Social media managers must be adaptable, aware, and ready for any major changes in their industry.
Why you should hire a social media manager
Social media is now essential for any business looking to have an online impact.
Modern customers not only demand businesses to have a social media presence, but they also expect them to be active and approachable.
Your social media profiles must provide valuable content and act as a communication hub for answering questions from customers.
Hiring a social media manager is no longer a luxury for businesses. It’s essential for keeping up with industry standards and delivering on customer expectations.
If you need any more convincing as to why you should hire a social media manager, here are some benefits worth considering.
#1 Saves time (and money)
One of the main reasons you may hesitate to hire a social media manager is the added cost.
Whether you take someone on board full-time or part-time, there’s no escaping the fact that you’re adding to your overheads. However, this may be a short-sighted point of view. You must consider the bigger picture.
A social media manager will add more professionalism to your approach. Working with your team, they will come up with a strategy and create subsequent social media campaigns to help you achieve your goals.
Managers monitor and analyse campaigns closely, ensuring you get a good return on your investment.
You won’t always see a direct financial advantage to having a social media manager. That said, you should see tangible improvements in digital performance and marketing campaigns which will impact the bottom line with time.
#2 Creates engaging content for your target audience
Social media marketing isn’t effective as a direct sales tool. 64% of customers claim they will likely stop using social media if they encounter too much advertising.
Marketers use each platform to create engaging content that adds value to the customer, creating a sales funnel.
Posting valuable content consistently not only takes time, but it also requires strategic thinking and planning.
Adapting your social strategy to your target audience is difficult, especially if you post on multiple platforms.
Social media managers specilase in publishing content that resonates with your followers and target market. This keeps your audience engaged, grows your following, and helps you foster a loyal customer base with considerable lifetime value.
#3 Boost brand recognition
65% of consumers browse reviews on sites like Amazon or TripAdvisor before purchasing a product or service.
While dedicated review sites remain popular, social media is also important for branding and reputation. More consumers than ever are using social media to discover new brands, learn about products and services, and purchase from brands.
Failing to optimise your social channels may not only lead to missed opportunities, but it could directly impact your brand reputation.
Whether it’s a lack of activity, quality content, or followers, poor social media performance is likely to be hurting your brand.
Source: Digital Marketing Institute
A dedicated social media manager ensures that you post valuable content regularly, build a following, and engage with your community. This helps build loyal customers and attracts new followers.
It’s important to note that followers aren’t necessarily customers, but you should also recognise the value of generating an audience.
#4 Become data-driven
Most modern businesses are data-driven machines.
Why? Using data to make decisions means relying on evidence rather than intuition or guesswork. This allows management to make confident decisions quickly.
Handling multiple social media accounts provides your business with a lot of data every day. A social media manager can compile the data into in-depth reports, which your business can use to make better decisions.
Crunching the social numbers also points out what’s working best, so you can maintain sustainable high-performing posts.
Other benefits of hiring a data-driven social media manager include:
- A/B testing content variations
- Creating accurate buyer personas and audience profiles
- ROI measurement
- Budget setting
- Competitive benchmarking
- Goal setting and monitoring
- Improved customer service
- Personalised advertising
Does this mean all social media managers are also analysts? Absolutely not.
Social media managers leverage tools and programs, like Sendible’s social media management tool, designed to crunch the numbers and assemble reports.
From here, the manager simply needs to interpret the data and learn from it. It makes the complex side of social media much more manageable.
#5 Stay up to date with trends
Social media trends are often short-lived, so most brands ignore them.
However, one viral piece of content can change the trajectory of your business. A social media manager helps ensure your content calendar is full ahead of time. This gives them ample opportunities to study the landscape and jump on any emerging trends.
Keeping up with trends doesn’t always mean knowing the next viral TikTok dance.
It also involves paying attention to algorithm changes and platform updates. These can have enormous impacts on strategy and post-performance.
For example, in 2021, TikTok reported that 72% of its users claimed advertising on their platform to be more inspiring than on others.
This led to businesses creating ads specifically for the TikTok platform. A social media manager will keep up to date with such trends so your business won’t miss out on any opportunities.
Social media management can help grow your business
Hiring a social media manager can instantly improve your business’s digital performance. Social media is no longer a guessing game so you’ll need expertise if you want to stand out from competitors.
A dedicated manager will ensure your content strategy aligns with the latest algorithm changes and your posts are tailored to the right audience.
What’s more, by utilising software, like Sendible’s social media management program, social activities will be efficient and data-driven.
Your social media manager will have everything they need to thrive.
To give you an idea of what to expect with Sendible, here are some of our tool’s key features:
- Single dashboard to manage all activities, creating a streamlined management process.
- Collaboration tools allow you to assign and approve posts, and give custom access to various projects.
- Smart Queues saves you time by allowing you to plan and schedule content for various platforms and clients months in advance. This ensures posts are distributed evenly over time.
You can also make sure new posts you are composing get added to an existing queue by simply making sure 'smart queue' is displaying with the correct title.
Here is a video that walks you through this feature:
- Generate in-depth reports and gain insights into your social media strategy to determine what works best for your audience.
- Plus much, much more.
The best part is that we’ll give you a free 14-day try to test out our tool. If you don’t see benefits within a couple of weeks, there’s no obligation to continue. You can cancel anytime. You don’t need a credit card to sign up so rest assured there are zero hidden charges. Sound good? Sign up for our free 14-day trial today.
