What does a social media manager do? (Skills and characteristics of social media managers) (2023)

Small and medium-sized businesses typically manage their social accounts in three ways. Sometimes one of the owners maintains social accounts in addition to their other responsibilities. Alternatively, if the company is big enough to hire employees, they can delegate the task to one of the employees, possibly one of the younger employees. The third option that smaller companies use is to outsource their social media management, either to a specialist agency or perhaps a freelancer.

However, larger companies have an additional option. They usually choose to hire an expert social media manager to handle all social matters. In some cases, they even hire an entire team to manage their social media accounts, often expanding into areas like reputation management and social listening.

So what makes a great social media manager and what does he or she do?

What does a social media manager do?

Desirable Skills and Traits of a Social Media Manager

Like all humans, your social media manager has a set of skills and traits. The question to ask yourself is how easy it is to find someone who has the right mix of skills and traits for the job. And there is a difference between the two terms. Skills are tangible factors that a person brings to your organization. They are measurable and most people can learn them with enough training and hands-on experience. A trait, on the other hand, is a personal quality that someone possesses, it is an integral part of that person, part of their core personality. A person's attributes often affect their ability to learn and perform a skill.

When choosing your social media manager, you need to look for someone with the right mix of skills and traits. Here are some of the skills (driven by the appropriate traits) you're likely to focus on when choosing your social media manager.

Basic understanding of how social media works

There's no point in hiring someone to manage your social accounts if you don't have solid knowledge of the world of social media. You must know the mechanics of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other sites relevant to your business. You need to understand the differences between each platform and how to get the best results from each platform.

advertising texts

Good copy is essential for all social media marketing, even on inherently visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. You only have a limited number of words to use on most social sites and you don't want to waste them. You want every post to get noticed. Your profile pages and bios should sound interesting and contain just the right information about you. You want your social posts to tell your story and generate engagement.

design skills

No matter how good your copy is, you're unlikely to set the social world on fire unless you share some eye-catching graphics. Your text can tell your story, but your image design can help convey that message in a visually appealing way. Posts with visual elements get a higher level of engagement. It's visual platforms like Instagram and YouTube that have seen the most growth in recent years.

Customer service competence

It's surprising how many people use social media to ask questions or raise concerns about a brand. Your ideal social media manager might use social media for informal customer service. It may involve answering questions people ask about the product. It could be a form of reputation management or trying to resolve issues when a customer makes a very public complaint.

Confidence speaking to an audience

The ability to speak in front of an audience may seem less obvious than many of these skills and traits. However, thanks to the advent of live streaming, it is becoming more and more important. More and more people watch live streams on Facebook, Instagram or one of the specialized sites like Twitch or Mixer.

The need for this, of course, depends a lot on your audience. But ideally, your social media manager will feel comfortable enough to post your favorite social app and start talking to your target market.

While most of us are nervous when speaking in public, your audience probably doesn't expect perfection. Your ideal social media manager should be able to do this without falling short and not knowing what to say.

Ideally, they should also have interviewing skills so they can include other relevant people in their live stream and keep a conversation going.

understanding of the analysis

It's all well and good for someone to post on social media on behalf of your business, but that person needs to know whether those posts are successful or not. Understanding analytics, particularly social media metrics, is an essential skill for any social media manager.

All marketing must start with goal setting. In the case of social media marketing, the objectives can relate to raising awareness, engagement, following, or even using social media posts to drive additional sales. However, you must have a way to measure whether you are achieving your goals. The metrics your social media manager will focus on should be directly related to your chosen objectives.

You should trust your social media manager to understand how different social networks work. He or she should be able to advise you on which social channels you should focus on the most.

easily customizable

Adaptability is more of a trait than a skill. Social media is a rapidly changing industry. They don't want a social media manager stuck in their habits and unwilling to change. Recently, there has been a marked shift from plain text posts to image posts and video posts, along with a growing popularity of live streaming. Your social media manager needs to be able to keep up with trends (for your average audience) and be willing to change your approach accordingly.

Main functions of a social media manager

Creating your social media strategy

One of the first tasks of a social media manager is to create (or revise) the company's social media strategy. To do this, you need to work with the management. In particular, your manager should define the goals and future direction of future social campaigns. This should align with overall business objectives.

Implementation of the social media strategy.

Once your social media manager knows the direction of future social campaigns, you can start managing the social accounts as planned. Your manager may well choose to work with aSocial media marketing platformto help with planning. He or she can use this to pre-schedule posts and in some cases even group posts on the platform.

When your social media manager runs a social team, you need to assign specific responsibilities to different team members. Many of the platforms can simplify communication between teams.

content creation

While your social media manager may not be responsible for all of your content creation, they do take charge and oversee the creation process. This includes monitoring content used in influencer campaigns, although influencers are likely to create this content themselves.

social media monitoring

The social media manager needs to continually measure results to see how successful posts are in meeting business objectives. He or she needs to customize metrics to track each campaign and not constantly rely on traditional "old favourites" or vanity metrics like number of followers.

Essential tasks for a social media manager

The specific tasks to be performed by your social media manager are in line with the above responsibilities. For example, communicating with all relevant stakeholders and creating a social media strategy should be one of your first tasks. Only when the plan is clear can the social media manager take on the task of operating social accounts sensibly.

Your social media manager has the day-to-day responsibility of managing your social media accounts. He or she tracks the results and takes care of any issues that arise. Depending on the size of the social team, your manager can post new content and interact with your followers. You may need to respond to customer questions and comments and share other relevant materials, including posts from influencers and other important people.

Your social media manager may also be responsible for much of your brand advocacy, and possibly even your employee advocacy. He or she will find and communicate with the right influencers in your niche to ensure your account is visible and seen as valuable.

Your social media manager (or another member of the social team) may also be responsible for participating in groups and forums to discuss topics related to your business and niche.

Your social media content manager will likely spend some time writing and designing images for posts. This is especially true if you also have a blog or YouTube channel. He or she will also likely comment on posts, both yours and those of others in the niche. In particular, comments on influencers' posts should be well thought out and enhance the original content.

To measure campaign results, your social media manager must first develop benchmarks that you can use to compare the results of specific campaigns. It then compares actual results against these benchmarks to determine campaign success and then reports to senior management.

Your manager can go even further and analyze your company's social performance compared to your main opponent.