How to Become a Social Media Manager

Are you thinking of becoming a social media manager?

If you are, then you’re in for a treat because with the way social media is expanding, the demand for social media managers is also growing.

However, like all things worth pursuing, you need to take specific steps to turn into the social media manager of your dreams.

You’ll need to learn the tools for marketers, skills, and strategies – such as how to make the most of Twitter for your business – necessary for successful social media management.

If you’re ready to kickstart your career as a social media manager, then this five-step guide is for you.

Let’s get right to it.

1. Get some training.

Let’s get something straight. Getting certified as a social media manager is not mandatory for the position.

However, going through a social media certification training shows a willingness on your part to continue learning and improving your skills, which can give you a competitive advantage.

Plus, undergoing these kinds of training will help you build the skills you need to handle your projects in the future successfully.

When looking for online social media certification training courses, you can take a look at the course outline and check whether they offer what you need and get an idea of the duration of the entire training period.

Image Source: Simplilearn.com 

Some employers might require a degree in marketing, public relations, business, and related courses for the position, but if you don’t have one, having a social media training certification can help you prove your competencies and skills.

Getting certified can cost you, but it’s worth investing in to help build your career.

2. Build your skills.

The role of a social media manager has a lot of aspects, which means you’ll need a variety of skills – both technical and soft – to help you succeed.

Plus, with the rate that social media is changing and growing, you will need the abilities to cope with these dynamics and perform your role well.

With that said, here are several skills you need to do your best as a social media manager.

• Time management. Staying on top of your tasks is a crucial skill to have as a social media manager since proper time management plays a vital part in the implementation of your marketing strategies.

For instance, you can create a simple social media calendar that will help organize your content creation and distribution throughout relevant platforms.

Here’s a sample social media content calendar Excel template.

• Copywriting and creating content. You will need the capabilities to come up with compelling social media copy and content – ones that your target audience can resonate with, provides value, and engages them.

• Researching and constantly learning. With the social media world constantly changing, you will need the ability to keep up with the latest trends and be willing to learn continually.

• Visual intelligence. Visual content makes up a huge part of social media, so understanding the type of images, videos, GIFs, and more that work well and catch the eye of your target audience is an essential skill for you to have.

Although it might not be possible for you to acquire the PERFECT set of skills required of a social media manager, you can start with the basics and grow your skill set from that.

3. Know and master the tools.

Social media management tools are vital to your success in the role, and proficiency in these tools can help make you more attractive to your potential employers.

However, with the sheer number of available social media management tools you can choose from, it might be overwhelming to select which ones to learn first.

Here are several tools that you can start with.

Canva

With the tool, you can create infographics, banner ads, and social media content and more for your marketing campaigns.

You can choose from the tool’s library of templates, graphics, photos, and fonts, plus, drag-and-drop what you need to create your designs.

Plus, Canva offers templates that are specifically for creating social media content such as your Facebook cover, Instagram post, and more.

By using a tool like this, you can quickly and easily turn your social media content into stunning designs.

Sotrender

One of the best ways to assess if your social media marketing campaigns are performing well is to look at your numbers – like your number of engagements, impressions, reach, etc.

By using a social media analytics platform like Sotrender, you can get the data and insights you need to optimize your campaigns.

For instance, Sotrender will analyze your Facebook engagement based on an interactivity index.

This data can help you determine which content on your Facebook page gets the most engagement – including the various weights of different types of activities.

Sotrender’s interactive data visualizations and data-driven recommendations make it one of the most useful social media management tools that will help you make better decisions and improve your campaigns.

Grammarly

Being grammatically and politically correct in your social media content is crucial to your role, and a tool such as Grammarly can help you with that.

This tool offers a plugin and features like online spell-check, grammar check, and plagiarism detection.

Using a free tool like Grammarly can help ensure that there are no grammatical errors in your social media posts.

Plus, it even has a clarity and engagement rating to help you keep your written content as attention-grabbing as possible. 

These are just a few of the basic tools that you can start learning.

As you grow your career, you can also learn more advanced tools like the best ecommerce platforms and their integration to social media sites, automation tools, content marketing tools, etc.

The more tools you learn, the more efficient you become at being a social media manager since you can leverage the online tools’ features.

4. Gain work experience.

One of the excellent ways to gain experience is to start with your own social media accounts.

After all, being able to establish your online presence, gain a significant following, and manage your social accounts extremely well shows your capabilities and skills in social media management.

Think of it as your social media manager training period. 

Here are some other strategies you can adopt to gain more work experience and even start getting potential clients.

• Master your own social marketing. Building your online portfolio will help drive traffic to your social profiles and website, and it makes it easier for more people to find you.

You can even start a blog as a way to share relevant content, engage your followers, and get more traffic.

• Follow the brands you like. Following your favorite brands can give you ideas on some of the most effective ways of social media marketing and try to apply the strategies to your own social accounts.

Plus,  you’ll  be alerted in case the brands you like have a social media manager position open.

• Try to volunteer for a few projects. As a newbie, you’ll still need to build your credibility, and working initially for free for maybe a few of your friends and acquaintances is a great way to do that.

This way, you get to have a bit of practice with the mindset of working on a “real” project.

• Aim big, but start small. To become a successful social media manager, you’ll need to start somewhere, and at times, it won’t be as lucrative as you would expect, but it’s still a start.You can try freelancing websites to find your first job, and who knows, maybe a few months or years down the line, you’ll be a social media manager to one of the leading brands.

Ready to build your career as a Social Media Manager?

Becoming a social media manager isn’t as easy as it seems, but it’s not rocket science either.

If you take the right steps – such as getting some training, building your skills, learning the tools, and gaining actual work experience – you’ll be on your way to kick start your career as a social media manager.

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