7 things I wish someone had said, when I started working with social media

Phillip Rasmussen
Jul 28, 2017 · 5 min read

A couple of days ago, a Twitter user DM’ed me to ask for advice. He was a graphic designer who wanted to get into social meda marketing and asked what he could do to improve his chances of getting work. Essentially his problem cam down to this:

“I have no actual media management experience, but every job requires social media experience. How do I break the cycle and land a job?”

It can feel like quite the conundrum at first, but it is actually solvable. Especially in this case where Edward should have a leg up on other potential candidates, because he knows how to create graphical content.

Below are my pointers to him, and re-reading them I figured that others might also benefit from them. Thus I present to you “7 things I wish someone had said, when I started working with social media”. The number of items is of course completely arbitrary, but I read somewhere that “Lists are good, numbers are good and numbered lists are the best”.

#1 — Read all the things

You have to read all the time. You need to know exactly what’s going on in the social media space; you need to understand how the algorithm work on Facebook; why/if you should use Instagram stories over Snapchat: how you create thumbnails that people click on. Read, read, read. A lot of the knowledge is shitty and redundant, but keep going and take notes. Write your own manual of golden nuggets while you read. You’ll quickly learn what’s solid knowledge and what’s shit. Take the solid knowledge and make notes to yourself about how you put it to use.

#2 — It isn’t stealing if you say “you were inspired”

Be inspired by great brands. Follow great brands, see what they do and get inspired by them. You [Edward] have an inherent leg up on most social media managers, because you’re good at graphic design. Being able to quickly pull up Photoshop and create a meme or edit a picture so it looks nicer, is one of the things that makes you valuable. Keep working on this skillset; being able to think fast and move faster (or the other way around I guess) is key in this business. Look at how @ESLCS are creating memes during events and wet your own feet at doing the same. A social media manager is only as good as his content.

#3 — Practice your writing

Write, write, write. The copy is God on social media. What do you want to have people do? RT something? Click a link? Purchase a jersey? You have to be good at creating that great copy that people act on. If you want to practice, create a parody account of something or someone and go to work and develop your writing skills. Being able to copy any given writing style is also a good tool, so the more styles you can emulate, the better off you are (employing the styles is a whole different matter, but that’ll only come with experience).

#4 — It’s more important to know “Why” than it is to know “How”

Strategize. Again, read, read, read. I recommend starting with “The Seven Factors of Social Business Strategy” and “Jab. jab, jab, right hook”. Both are good entry-level books that can be utilized to understand planning and execution of social media marketing. When you get hired as a social media manager, you will probably be responsible for planning and scheduling content. Being able to do that, from a strategical perspective is key. I’d take someone with scheduling skills and strategic overview, over someone with “proven social media skills”, any day. If you don’t want to start by cretaing your own strategies, try to analyse different brands and break their strategy down. It’s a great way to practice.

#5 — Create a social portfolio

So you’re a graphic designer. Well then design your own social portfolio. When you apply for a position where they require social media experience, create your own social verticals for that brand: “Manage” their Twitter with 4 different posts (you can create the content for the posts yourself, but try to hit the same style of copy and tone of voice), populate their Facebook with a similar amount of content, create a few thumbnails for their YouTube videos. Make sure you explain your choices on all the posts and thumbs. If you want to create a one-catch-all solution to it, try to strategize and create your own brand, messaging and visual style. Again, if you explain your choices throughout, it’ll more than outweigh “social media experience”. If you’re not a graphic designer like Edward, having writing examples, blogposts and a document with links and images of your social content is always a great way to get yourself ahead of the queue.

#6 — Show that you understand numbers

Analyze all the things. Develop data-analyzing skills, either by yourself or by proxy (knowledge of good social media tools is always a big plus). Understanding the data of social media, and being able to reflect and report on it, is super important. You need to understand what drives your audience and how to keep tuning your posts to that. Smart social media managers sit down and evaluate their posts and do more of what’s working and less of what’s not working. But to do that, you got to understand what is happening. All (great) social media managers are thinking about how their KPIs and business goals are being met, so being able to showcase that you understand that part of the job is important.

#7 — Get ahead of the curve

Work smart, not hard. Always be ahead of the curve. The better you are as a planner, the more time you have to develop new concepts, read, strategize and evaluate. A decent social media manager can populate weeks worth of social media posts in very little time, if the content and strategy is in place. The less time you have to spend on hygiene- and filler-content, the more time you have to showcase your value to the company.

This is obviously not a catch-all list in any way, so shoot me your suggestions to what a social media manager should do/know/learn in the comments. I’ll create another post from the suggestions and quote the submitter.

Phillip Rasmussen

Written by

Working with digital things in gaming and esport. Writing things on the Internet. I have opinions. Please forgive me.

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