Being a social media manager isn’t easy. You have to perform a lot of tasks on a daily basis to ensure everything is working smoothly. If you are interested in becoming a social media manager or want to pursue a career in social media marketing, you must know what do social media managers do. This will give you a decent idea of what to expect.
What Do Social Media Managers Do?
A social media manager has to perform a lot of tasks but the primary task is related to social media marketing and account management. All the social media accounts of the company are managed by the social media manager, and this is what he/she does.
Here is an infographic that lists tasks that a social media manager has to perform in a day:
It includes:
- Strategy development and setting objectives
- Creating goals and tasks
- Assigning tasks to the marketing team
- Content creation
- Monitoring and responding to comments
- Creating and managing social media campaigns
- Using social media marketing tools
- Measuring performance
- Generating reports for stakeholders
- Proving ROI.
Let’s dig deep and explore each of these tasks in detail:
1. Developing Social Media Marketing Strategy
The first and the most important task that a social media manager has to do is the development of a social media strategy. It outlines the long-term objectives, goals, and plan of action.
Businesses share a rough outline of what they want to achieve from social media. They usually don’t have a detailed strategy to accomplish it. This is something that a social media manager has to do to make his/her job easier and to prove ROI.
It also involves developing strategies for different social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.:
2. Creating Goals and Tasks
Creating specific goals and tasks to achieve a social media marketing objective is one of the most crucial tasks that a social media manager has to do. Goals are derived from the objective and strategy:
It involves creating a detailed plan of action that lists specific tasks as to what has to be done, who is to do it, and how to track it. For example, if the social media marketing objective is to have 100K followers in a year on all the social media platforms the company is using, you’ll (as a social media manager), create quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals to achieve this objective.
3. Assigning Tasks to the Marketing Team
A social media manager doesn’t work alone – he/she can’t work alone. Communication and collaboration are the key requirements for this role.
As a social media manager, you’ll have to work with the marketing team and must collaborate with other departments such as the product development team, designers, coders, etc.
Assigning weekly and monthly tasks to the relevant team members is the job of the social media manager. Monitoring team members and ensuring they’re meeting deadlines is also the responsibility of the manager.
4. Content Creation
Creating content for social media sites is a major task that a social media manager has to do. A robust content creation strategy involves:
- Content planning
- Analysis
- Creation
- Governance.
Content creation requires input from other teams such as the content marketing team, graphic designer, etc. After content has been planned and created, it needs to be scheduled for publication that needs an editorial calendar:
Developing and managing the social media editorial calendar is also the job of the social media manager.
5. Monitoring and Responding to Comments
A social media manager has to engage with the followers by responding to their comments and messages regularly. This is something that you have to do daily. Not only do you have to respond to followers, but you must actively participate in social listening that involves monitoring social media for brand mentions.
Here is an example:
Responding to such comments and providing timely responses to customers and followers is the responsibility of the social media manager.
6. Creating and Managing Social Media Campaigns
A social media manager has to create, run, and manage several social media campaigns such as social ads, polls, contests, etc.
If you are working as a social media manager, you must know what campaigns to create and how to manage them.
7. Using Social Media Marketing Tools
You can’t do social media marketing without tools. Whether it is a content planning tool, a scheduling tool, or an analytics tool, these are all handled by the manager.
Automating social media management is the first thing that a social media manager has to do as it helps him/her in doing the job. And you need to be exceptionally great at using tools. You must know what tools to use and how to use them.
8. Measuring Performance
A social media manager must track and measure performance regularly. What metrics to use and how to measure social media marketing performance are the two key questions that you, as a manager, must answer.
Measuring the right metrics based on social media objectives is essential. For example, if increasing the number of followers is the objective, the key metric to track is the number of followers.
However, a social media manager doesn’t just track a single metric rather he/she must track several metrics.
9. Generating Reports for Stakeholders
Analytics and reporting are something that social media managers do on a weekly or monthly basis. Importantly, generating easy-to-read and understandable reports for stakeholders is a key task.
If stakeholders can’t understand what you are doing and what you have achieved, they won’t be happy with your performance no matter what.
10. Proving ROI
This is the most challenging part of a social media manager’s job. Proving return on investment is the most important task, yet it is the most difficult one:
As a social media manager, you need to justify the dollars spent on social media marketing. And it requires some serious work such as tracking, in-depth analytics, tools, etc.
Final Words
The job of a social media manager is challenging yet rewarding. With an average yearly salary of more than $45K, it is one of the best career choices. Of course, you have to be ready to do all of these and many other tasks as a social media manager.
If you want to become a social media manager, work on developing and polishing the right skills that will help you perform these tasks hassle-free.
Featured Image: Pexels
