What skills a social media manager needs

1. Development of a social media marketing strategy

It is an absolute fact that a social media marketing manager should be able to develop a social media marketing strategy. If a person cannot do it, you are not dealing with a social media marketing specialist, and this person won’t be able to run a full-fledged campaign for you without a strategy. Development of a strategy includes many tasks:

• creation of customer avatars;
• arguments;
• niche analysis;
• finding suitable platforms;

And it is just to name a few.

2. Setting up targeted advertising

Working with targeted advertising is the number one thing and one of the core skills of a social media marketing specialist.

A social media marketing manager should be able to create adverts, set up targeting advertising on core platforms like Facebook and Instagram, work with retargeting, with similar audiences, Facebook Pixel, and other vital tools.

A frequently asked question: should any social media marketing manager be able to target?

Yes, but there are differences:

• there are full-stack social media marketing specialists: they set up targeted advertising and create content;
• there are content managers, who only deal with content;
• there are also target-managers.

It is a big set of skills, and along with targeted advertising, it is one of the two most important ones.

3. Working with content

It is a big set of skills and along with targeted advertising, it is one of the two most important ones.

Social media marketing specialist should be able to:

• write for social networks;
• work with video: you don’t have to use professional cameras, but you need to be able to do basic things;
• work with Stories and Live Streams.

4. Community management

Community management is a set of skills to manage and engage audiences. Community managers should be able to answer questions, stimulate discussions, develop activities, and run giveaways.

5. Working with interfaces

This is the most unnecessary requirement of all the above mentioned.

A social media marketing specialist may have all these skills, but it is vital that they are not only able to make covers in Canva but can combine colors and use fonts professionally.

A social media marketing specialist may have all these skills, but it is important that they are not only able to do covers in Canva but can professionally build color schemes and use fonts.

6. Mobile Messenger Marketing

Mobile Messenger Marketing is a promotion on mobile messengers. It is a very rare skill today which involves working with chat-bots, channels, and chats.

Mobile messengers grow very quickly, they do not replace social networks but already compete with them, and it is very important to be able to work with such platforms.

7. Collaboration with influencers

Collaboration with influencers suggests that a person can identify influencers, understand how to agree on cooperation with them, and understand price setting and sampling techniques (spreading samples of your product for promotion).

8. Analytics

A social media marketing specialist should be able to work with UTM parameters and Google Analytics.

Social media marketing specialists should be able to work with end-to-end analytics and be able to understand where the client has come from and how many targeted actions have been obtained from a particular source. They should be able to track the customer’s journey from the entry point up to the purchase point.

9. General marketing skills

Social media marketing specialists should act according to the general marketing management policy. That is why they should be able to determine USPs, deal with media buying, carry out SWOT analysis.

10. Manager skills

It is more likely that a social media specialist will have to make reports, prepare presentations, and search for ideas using a brainstorming technique. That is when manager skills may be helpful.