How To Become a Social Media Manager
Originally written by Erin Wike.
Erin Wike is a career coach and lecturer at The University of Texas at Austin and owner of Cafe Con Resume. Erin has over 14 years of experience in corporate marketing, advertising, PR, non-profit and higher education as well as recruiting for many well-known brands and small businesses.
Social media managers are individuals who manage the social media presence of a business or person. This role has become increasingly important because many organizations and public figures use social media to engage with their audience. To pursue this career, you must develop strong communication skills, earn a relevant degree and master the use of social media.
Many people think social media is “easy.” While it may be easy to share an image and post small commentary, there is actually a lot of data analytics and strategy that goes into it. In this article, we will discuss what social media managers do and how to pursue a career in this role.
What does a social media manager do?
A social media manager is the person within an organization’s communications, marketing or public relations department that monitors, filters, contributes to and guides the social media presence of a business, product or brand. Social media platforms are fast-paced and usually considered “real-time marketing,” so social media managers must be able to work quickly and respond and share information as it becomes available. The social media manager often must be well-versed in news cycles and an industry expert for their company, business, product or service.
Companies across all different industries have embraced social media as a method for acquiring and maintaining customers, so having someone who can manage their online presence is essential.
Their main duties include:
- Creating editorial calendars of possible content related to timing and channel
- Publishing content to share through various social media channels. Each company may have a mix of social media channels that reach their specific market
- Responding to user-generated comments and feedback to create a positive brand experience for strong engagement
- Creating campaigns with messages that represent the brand voice
- Tracking content and campaign success through engagement ratings, metrics and analytics
- Participating in visual design strategies
- Generating engagement and promotional strategies, such as influencer marketing, generating organic traffic and paid advertising
- Presenting findings to upper management to assess and guide strategy moving forward
- Recognizing and reassessing if a certain platform is not producing the acceptable ROI
- Maintaining brand guidelines across all channels and working with team members to ensure brand messaging is consistent
- Staying on top of trends. For example, using short videos are popular now but memes continue to see high engagement
- Contributing to the tone of the brand — be serious, responsible or even funny if and where it makes sense
- Developing and representing the brand with a consistent personality — be very clear on how this person would interact with its customers, partner brands and/or even its competitors. For example, some fast food companies banter back and forth on Twitter with light humor and become viral with lots of engagement from customers in the sense of retweets and comments.
Related: Creating a Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy
The average salary for social media managers
The average salary for a social media manager is $44,741 per year. The salary range for social media managers varies between $14,000 and $105,000 per year. Some of the factors that can impact the salary of someone working in this role include their experience, level of education, company or even industry and geographical location.
How to become a social media manager
1. Garner experience in social media marketing strategy
There is a myth that all young people can be great at social media because they have grown up with it and they have had cameras on their phones since they were teenagers. And while yes, they are great at learning new platforms and posting for their individual following, there is a lot of strategizing and thought put into a brand’s social media platform or efforts.
If being a social media manager interests you, you can garner experience by reaching out to a friend/family member that owns a small business. Get to know them and understand how or why they would want to post to social media platforms. Learn more about business objectives and how social media can enhance their businesses and even drive new customers. There are many layers to the value of social media — user-generated content, geographically relevant information, the ability for target marketing — but no business should be posting content without a strategy.
There are some sincere considerations to how each business addresses their social media and to be fair, they may change their strategy over time if one platform is not working for them. Each platform has its value and type of content, so a company or brand may need to select which ones are the best time and money investment for them.
The best way to grow in this role is to have real-world work experience so you can hone the necessary skills and be a value add to the organization.
2. Earn a degree or gain relevant work experience
Although not all social media manager positions require a college degree, many employers prefer candidates to have a bachelor’s degree. The best programs for this career path include business, marketing, advertising, public relations and general communications degrees. Psychology majors also do well in this area because they are well-versed in human behaviors and the customer mindset, why we do the things we do and why we purchase items from certain brands.
You can also look for educational programs that include training and courses in social media management and strategy. Consider also pursuing internships, volunteer roles or entry-level work that involve working with social media to practice theory and strategies learned in the classroom. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can also be really helpful to gain experience and knowledge in analytics and social media campaign planning. You can find these on websites such as Udemy, Coursera and Google.
