Are you a people person? Do you have a knack for creating content that engages and entertains?
If you answered yes to both of these questions, then a career in social media management might be right for you.
You may be wondering, however, if you have the skills needed to be a successful social media manager.
What is a Social Media Manager?
As a social media manager, your job will be to oversee the social media presence of your company or client. This includes creating and curating content, managing customer interactions, and analyzing data to see what’s working and what isn’t.
To succeed in this role, you’ll need to have strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to think creatively. You should also be highly organized and detail-oriented, with a keen understanding of social media.
10 Skills to be a Social Media Manager
As you can probably see, it takes various skills to succeed in a social media management role.
If you’re thinking of becoming a social media manager, here are 10 skills we think you need to succeed in the role:
Strong writing and communication skills
A big part of your job will be creating content for social media. This means you must have strong writing and communication skills to create engaging, compelling, and error-free content.
Creativity
To stand out from the rest, you need to be able to think creatively when it comes to creating content and coming up with strategies.
For example, if everyone in your industry is using Twitter (X), you may need to come up with a creative way to use another platform like Snapchat to reach your target audience.
Organization
As a social media manager, you’ll be responsible for managing multiple accounts and schedules.
This means you must be highly organized and detail-oriented to keep everything running smoothly. This skill can come in handy especially when you need to create content for different time zones or track multiple conversations happening across various platforms.
Time Management
Along with being organized, you must also be good at managing your time. This is important because you’ll often be working on tight deadlines and must be able to prioritize tasks accordingly.
Social media managers are often tasked with managing multiple accounts, so time management skills are a must. In addition to managing multiple accounts, you may also be managing a team of people.
This means you must be able to delegate tasks and manage people effectively.
Flexibility
Things can change quickly in the world of social media.
You need to be flexible and adaptable in order to keep up with the latest trends and platform changes. For example, when Instagram switched from a chronological feed to an algorithm-based feed, many companies and social media managers had to quickly adapt their strategies.
Or, when Snapchat introduced Stories, many companies had to create new content to take advantage of this new feature.
Customer Service Skills
A large part of your job will involve interacting with customers or clients with questions or issues. This means you need excellent customer service skills to resolve any issues quickly and efficiently.
Oftentimes, social media managers are the first point of contact for customers, so it’s important to be able to handle customer service issues in a professional and courteous manner.
Source: B Squared Media, Conversations That Connect
Strategic Thinking
A successful social media manager is able to think strategically about their goals and objectives. This means being able to come up with creative solutions to problems and being able to plan ahead for future changes.
Passion for Social Media
This might seem like a given, but it’s important that you have a genuine passion for social media if you want to be successful in this role.
You need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and platform changes, and be excited about the potential of social media.
Willingness to Learn
The social media landscape is always changing, so you must be willing to learn new things and adapt to change.
If you’re not open to learning, you’ll quickly fall behind. There are plenty of online courses, both free and paid, to keep you up to date on everything social media.
Ready to be a Social Media Manager?
That’s it! Those are the top 10 skills we think social media managers need to have.
Don’t get too overwhelmed by this list. It’s merely a guide to help you decide if a social media career is right for you. If you have some of these skills, you can always learn the rest.
Joanna Maher
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