Why a social media manager and a content creator are actually two different roles.
To those hiring for your #socialmedia teams. I see this all the time. A company hiring a Social Media Manager and Content Creator. It’s 2023, and every company needs someone to do that, which is correct. However, here is where they get it wrong.
A social media manager and a content creator are two different jobs and two different people. It’s the left brain and right brain. One is strategy, and the other is artistic. If you try and squeeze both of those roles into one person, you are sacrificing one thing for other. Most people in digital media can post and create a flyer on Canva. Those are two tasks anyone in social media can and should be able to do. However, if you want an expert in social media management and an expert in content creation, there is no way one person can accomplish all of those tasks in a week, let alone in a single day.
Some people might be amazing at both and can cross over, but that is not likely. They are two very different and time-consuming tasks. You need people who are strategy-minded but also people who are graphic designers and videographers. As a social media manager, someone manages the community, creates a calendar, brainstorms creative ideas, writes captions, and researches trends/hashtags/sounds. They will not have enough time to create the content. Suppose someone is creating content, such as filming, creating graphics, creating content on Adobe, editing photos, or editing videos. In that case, there is no way they will have time to properly manage the community and do the rest of the above.
Companies might think hiring one person to do both tasks makes sense since it’s all under the social media field, but it’s like car companies trying to use the gas pedal to accelerate and break. Sure, it can work, but most people are uncomfortable using one pedal to do two things, and it will never be perfect. Besides the time constraints, if you hire one person to do both, they are likely much better at one of those things. It takes a lot of time to become an expert in either management or design, and it is very difficult to find the time to become an expert in both. Also, we have not even gotten into advertising yet, such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, etc. Again, most people can set up a Facebook Ad. Still, it doesn’t mean it will perform well, create a structured audience, know how to optimize it, can create A/B tests, create retargeting audiences, write 5 different versions of headlines, and report on analytics.
I get how a company might see this all being part of the social media ecosystem, which it is, but you will have a more well-rounded team if you hire two people instead of 1 person trying to do both. In the case of advertising, you might actually need 3 people. Think of it as an assembly line. You are building a car, but you wouldn’t have the same person working on the engine, doing the paint job, and then stepping out onto the floor to sell the car. It is all part of the ecosystem, but these jobs are different. If you spend the time and money to build a social media team, then build out the team and hire appropriately.
At the end of the day, you might be inclined to hire someone who says they can do all three of those things decently, but you will discourage or pass on someone who is a rockstar at one of those things. So, why make job hunters feel like they aren’t qualified and then hire someone who can’t possibly do all three things at a high level? So many talented people get passed on daily because they don’t have experience in multiple fields, which is unfortunate. So, to the hiring manager browsing through applications, go for the social media management expert and the expert in design. Your social media pages will thank me later.