As an influencer, you may spend a significant amount of your time on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and so on! You’re probably aware of the technical know-how of these platforms and can manage dozens of social profiles. There is no limit to the money you can earn as a social media manager — the more social profiles you handle, the richer you can get!
However, if you want to capitalize on your knowledge, you need specific skills to become a social media manager for reputable brands. A must be proficient in communication, team management, social media tools, and creating winning content strategies.
We have hand-picked six resume-worthy skills you should learn to become a highly eligible candidate in the social media management market.
Top Skills To Become A Brand’s Go-to Social Media Manager!
1. Copywriting
Copywriting is the art of persuasive writing that makes readers take the actions you want them to take. These actions range from signing up for a newsletter to purchasing a specific product. Honestly, saying copywriting is essential would be an understatement!
The content a copywriter writes is called a copy. And copy is everywhere, from the first page of a magazine featuring a perfume advertisement to a website selling scented candles to a television ad promoting soda! As a social media manager, you need this skill to write attention-grabbing captions or witty ads. Copy that elicits the audience’s emotions will influence your readers, get you higher engagement and compel people to follow the call to action.
Learning this skill will equip you with a better audience understanding, enabling you to tailor your writing for different audiences and platforms. This will help you work with social media brands from other industries with diverse target audiences.
Besides being one of the most crucial social media skills, copywriting is also vital for your career. You can use it to upsell yourself and offer blog writing or website copywriting services for an improved cash flow. In addition, learning copywriting will also allow you to articulate yourself better, so you make great positive impressions on all your clients.
2. Social media management tools
Scrolling through your feed and uploading a photo is a no-brainer! But when it comes to managing brands’ social profiles, you need to go the extra mile to yield great results. This is because every post impacts the social media presence of top-notch brands. Therefore, getting accustomed to using social media management tools for editing photos, creating graphics, and scheduling posts is a must.
Understanding these tools will make social profile management easy, quick, and impressive. You can use tools like Hootsuite to streamline the process and complete day-to-day social media tasks. These tools will give you an edge over your competitors and justify the high prices you charge. Companies will feel confident handing over their social media accounts to you, knowing you have the required technical knowledge.
Moreover, these apps will save time, which is beneficial, especially when you have multiple clients to attend to. Many of these cut the added step of individually logging in and out of various accounts and offer a one-stop solution for all the accounts you are managing. And by using content scheduling apps, you can also rest assured that your posts will automatically upload even when you are enjoying your vacation in Hawaii!
3. Graphic design
All social media platforms, be it Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest, thrive on visually appealing feeds and aesthetic photos. Only high-quality images can get you the engagement rate you are expecting. Therefore, you have no other way to succeed on the platform than to get this basic social media rule right: great graphics get good views! As humans, we are captivated by fascinating photos and compelled to hit the like button — a competent social media manager leverages this trait and uploads awesome pictures.
Sadly, an unedited, raw image doesn’t drive interest. You will have to learn graphic design to boost visibility, and should know how to click eye-catching pictures, edit them, and design posts or Stories. Trust us, this skill alone can help you earn a fortune!
You don’t need to fret because brands don’t expect you to be an Adobe Photoshop pro. A basic understanding of color schemes and brand aesthetics is enough to create a coherent and attractive feed for brands on social media. Remember, this knowledge will also help you create a good-looking personal brand on social media. This, in turn, will grab the attention of brands and catapult your career as an influencer.
You can rely on tools like Canva and Adobe Spark. The free version of these apps is enough to design professional social media posts. You can get thousands of editable templates for various social platforms and just need to change the image and content before uploading. Both these apps are also mobile-friendly for on-the-go usage.
4. Community management
Creating a social media account and uploading content consistently is only half the battle won. Engaging with the audience to create lasting bonds is equally vital for businesses, regardless of their size in the market. Social engagement can provide businesses ample opportunities to build brand loyalty and increase sales. It can help them create a community, a.k.a an army of promoters that spread the brand message. Since most brands already have a strong community, you need to have community management skills if working for them.
As a social media manager, you will be expected to initiate conversations, observe the target audience, monitor tweets, and respond to comments and queries on the company’s behalf. The company’s reputation will be impacted based on your actions. You may even have to deal with trolls and negative feedback. If you are great at community management, all this would be a cakewalk.
Here are some tips to help you excel in community management.
- Consistently post content that offers value and addresses the problems of the target audience to position the brand as a thought leader and problem-solver
- Respond to comments to let people know you care about their opinions and are reliable
- Smartly handle negative comments and give agitated customers quick resolutions
- Run giveaways and contests to boost engagement and follower count
5. Strategy planning
Spending time on social media without a strategy is the same as wandering in the wilderness without a map. ALERT: You will never reach your destination! So, to build a solid online presence, create an efficient strategy to ensure you are not wasting time on social media channels. A proper social plan will consider your business goals, be it increased website traffic, awareness, brand affinity, or sales. Besides, you will be able to target the right audience, getting more conversions efficiently.
Therefore, brands prefer social managers who are proficient at creating winning strategies for diverse social platforms. Strategy planning will help you develop good content ideas and create posts that the target audience finds appealing and resonates with. You will be expected to outline goals, create a buyer persona, and understand the platforms best suited for specific industries. Brands won’t have any second thoughts about hiring you with this knowledge under your belt.
But remember that all brands are unique with different target audiences. Therefore, you will have to create personalized social strategies for each. Also, keep an eye on the latest trends to create content around those. This will help the brands scale faster and get more visibility.
6. SEO content optimization
Yes, SEO is not limited to websites! You may have come across SEO (search engine optimization) in digital marketing. SEO is primarily relevant in blogs, as marketers optimize their blog posts to receive a higher rank on popular search engines. But you can also optimize social profiles, as they are often amongst the top results when people search for specific brands.
You can optimize social profiles by adding specific keywords, hashtags, and meaningful content to increase your brand reach and engagement. Remember, social media channels are also search engines. These days, people don’t always search on Google or Bing. They use Instagram and Facebook too. TBrands are now expanding their SEO strategies to social search engines instead of traditional ones.
A good social media manager knows the latest changes in social algorithms to tweak their profiles and content. They will better understand what content format works on which platforms. This knowledge will help increase the following and reach of brands.
These are the six essential skills you must include in your job description as a social media manager. With these skills up your sleeve, brands would chase you to handle their social media accounts and accomplish their business goals.
And if you want to work with reputable brands and transform them into social media pioneers, we have you covered! Our AI-based influencer platform, Atisfyre, will connect you with industry-leading brands whose social accounts you can take charge of! We have streamlined the entire process of brand partnerships, and all you have to do is sign-up with us — we’ll handle the rest.
Register today!
