The success of your content on social media hinges on the marketing strategy you have in place. With so much content published online every day, you need to be consistent with the quality of social media posts you create and share, check out copywriting services to know about content strategy.

A social media marketing strategy enables you to create quality content so that you can build your online presence and reach your audience, expanding your social following and increasing the potential for conversion.

According to Social Sprout, the average person bounces between seven different social networks per month, notably Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube, with adults spending approximately 95 minutes a day on social media. This shows how frequently people use different social networks. Apart from using search engines like Google, people go to social media to find brands that can offer solutions to their current problems. 

Social Sprout also reports that people are six times more likely to make a purchase from a product page that includes social media pictures, especially if brands highlight user-generated content. This content is created by customers and followers and is appealing because it is seen as genuine, realistic and truthful.

A social media marketing strategy allows you to create a diversified lineup of content for social media to increase your online engagement and build your brand credibility with different posts targeted to different platforms. To develop and implement a solid social media marketing strategy, you will need to nominate or employ a social media manager who has the ability to represent you in the best light.

There’s a misconception that social media manager positions can be allocated to interns because the work is “easy” to do, but social media management has a huge scope of tasks. Another misconception is that social media managers need to be like influencers. An influencer is an individual content creator with personal branding. While they may collaborate with other companies, an influencer focuses on products and services that cater to them and their audiences while a social media manager focuses primarily on their clients’ brand identity and messaging, not their own. 

As a content agency that handles social media marketing for different customers, we understand that being an effective social media manager takes skill — which you’ll see from the content we create on our platforms. 

5 qualities that social media managers need

Not all social media managers will have the same background or experience, so it’s important to pinpoint the qualities of a stand-out social media manager. 

We’ve shortlisted five skills and traits that social media managers need to accomplish their tasks and responsibilities efficiently. 

1. Social media managers are experts with basic client software and social media tools

Social media managers don’t spend all day on their phones browsing, liking and sharing posts. There are certain talents and skills required including knowledge of Google Suite and Microsoft Office. These platforms organise files, social findings and reports and provide collaboration with other team members across different departments.

Managers will be required to have a confident knowledge of different online platforms so that they can create, schedule and post content consistently across numerous channels and reach different markets effectively. As well as knowing how to handle the workload when things are going well, they also need to troubleshoot unexpected posting or scheduling issues and keep the social media content schedule on track. 

There are different social media tools available to help streamline and enhance your social posts and communications. The right one will depend on what your social media content goals are. A good manager will be well acquainted with most of them. Examples of social media tools include:

• Facebook Pages Manager – This is a management tool that allows social media managers to track engagement across multiple Facebook pages. It provides real-time notifications of likes, comments and shares so you can quickly see what is working and follow up with more of the same.

• Buffer – Ideally your social media needs to stretch across multiple types of accounts to reach the widest possible audience numbers. Buffer allows social media managers to schedule weekly or monthly posts across platforms like Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram. 

• Google Analytics – Analytics are important for monitoring the success of your campaigns and conversions as well as comparing your results to your competition. You can see how many website visitors and conversions you receive, as well as which social media platforms have driven them to your website.

• Unsplash – Quality images are essential for social media success. Unsplash has an extensive free image library to browse through.

2. Social media managers are collaborative and creative

Engagement is the most important aspect of social media campaigns. Having your brand out there means nothing if the reader’s eyes slide over it. Social media managers need to be able to communicate the message of the company vividly and in a way that is relatable, valuable and sparks interest.

To stay relevant with the company values and offering the business manager needs to stay in the loop with other departments and have regular conversations with business owners and senior company members on targets and goals to make sure what is being shared online is what the company wants to be known for.

Teams can use collaboration tools to work together such as project management software like ClickUp or Notion to assign tasks and track the progress of each project as well as share files and create documents together by using Google Drive.

Creativity and an ability to think and communicate outside the standard (boring) box are essential to get a competitive edge and find a strong and enticing voice amid the surplus of content online. 

3. Social media managers know how to gather and interpret data from social media analytics

Reading the room is essential when it comes to posting the right content at the right time. Having a finger on the pulse allows social media managers to adjust and adapt to current social, environmental and political shifts, but rather than relying on gut instinct, there is a wealth of data on hand to back up what’s working and what’s not.

Analytical skills are important to be able to gather and interpret relevant social data to refresh and improve social content and marketing strategy.

Each platform will have different metrics to measure, such as clicks, likes, shares and followers. 

Knowing what metrics to read from which platforms will help reach business goals and KPIs such as:

• Brand image management – Data collection and analysis allow social media managers to know what customers are saying about the brand and what the engagement level is through likes, comments and share numbers.

• Content optimisation – Different audiences favour different social media channels. Social media managers can use social data to identify their target audience’s preferred channels and content type to optimise strategies like how often to post, where to post and what time of day. 

• Improvement of SEO strategies – Using the right keywords (including hashtags) takes a bit of ongoing research but it’s worth it for connecting to audiences quickly and boosting content visibility.

Social data and analytics are essential to get a read on how well your business’s campaign and marketing strategy is performing. From there social media managers can identify high-performing areas as well as points for improvement, enabling them to revise the strategy as it’s rolled out.

4. Social media managers have great time management and problem-solving skills

Having a social media manager who is adept at problem-solving and crisis management equals calm and rational complaints handling. This is critical as these interactions are public – or can easily be made public if the person on the other end chooses. You need someone who will react gracefully to negative feedback, even in the cases of offensive comments or responses. How these situations are dealt with is a reflection on your company and brand, so you need the responses to be level-headed and patient.

A calm and level head also comes into play with social media managers who handle multiple accounts. Effective time management planning and skills are essential to hit deadlines and maintain posting frequency across larger workloads. Effective time management can also increase productivity and efficiency, allowing social media managers to quickly identify high-priority tasks and create a realistic to-do list that allows them to accomplish their objectives for each day.

5. They’re great at social listening

Social media engagement is about responding to the audience and listening to what they’re saying. This is known as social listening, where social media managers monitor customer engagement on social channels as well as listen to discussion topics and opinions online to identify which types of content the audience is responding to – not just for your brand, but for the industry as a whole.

Social listening allows social media managers to track conversations about a brand, its competitors and relevant keywords and topics to their industry and use these conversations to jumpstart new campaigns, fill a need or provide a solution that can effectively reach their target audience.

As you can see there are a lot of hats for a social media manager to wear, some that require bubbly social skills and others that require quiet thinking and analysis. As well as demonstrating a range of qualities and professional skills, the social media manager you choose needs experience and expertise in social media marketing to be able to create impactful content for your brand. 

For help in developing an effective social media marketing strategy that meets your audience’s needs and business goals be sure to get in touch with us here at Story League. We can show you how you can develop an effective social media marketing strategy and extend your brand reach and engagement.