Social Media Manager Skills You Should Look For

Ever since it emerged in 1997 with the short-lived SixDegrees, social media has become a part of everyday life. From starting as a space for virtual networking, it has evolved into a full-blown landscape with respective subcommunities. 

At present, there are many uses for social media. There are also different platforms that cater to different needs. However, one common denominator that is prominent among the platforms is that they are now utilized for business. 

How do businesses take advantage of social media? Considering the massive reach and diversity of users, there seems to be a market for almost anything. Hashtags, ads, and public and private communities in social media provide startups and budding entrepreneurs with virtual marketplaces where they can sell, generate feedback, and gather new ideas. 

The best thing about social media is that you can access entry-level features for free. Just create an account, and you’re good to go! This convenient and low-cost platform allows business owners not only to sell, but also engage with their target market, have direct customer feedback, and build customer loyalty. The international reach of these virtual platforms can also provide a once seemingly impossible global reach. In short, social media can provide opportunities and benefits to businesses that were once not available.

Benefits of Being on Social Media

• Brand Awareness and Attention

The logic here is very simple: If people don’t know you exist, they can’t buy your products! They don’t necessarily dislike what you offer, it’s just that they might be unaware of your presence. Boost your brand awareness to potential customers using social media. Through consistency, engagement, and dedicating time and effort to your socials, you can widen your reach and bring in curiosity which translates to brand awareness. 

• Potential and current customers have a go-to online brochure about your products or services.

Facebook page, Instagram page, LinkedIn page, Tiktok page, you name it. When a curious buyer or someone who just discovered your brand wants to know more about you, chances are they’ll start looking you up on social media. As long as your page continues to churn out valuable content, your brand has a good chance of pulling in new customers. Your current customers can also learn more about your other offerings if your page is up-to-date!

• Build authority in the business.

In connection with the previous benefit, being in social media (and having good content) also establishes you as an authority figure to your target audience. Moreover, chances are your loyal customers will also advertise you through word-of-mouth. If you have established brand loyalty, your audience may also look your brand up in case they are looking for a related product. Lastly, loyal customers may also ask you when you will be releasing a product that your competition currently offers!

• Generate (free) feedback and data

As long as your engagement game is on point, comment sections and direct messages are rich sources of free data you can use to improve your products. They can also give you ideas for your next product/service innovations, and can help you keep up with growing trends as well. 

• If not free, advertising is still affordable!

Social media advertising utilizes paid ads on Facebook, Instagram, or other social media platforms to increase your brand’s reach. If done correctly, businesses can reach their target audience better based on focused demographics and interests. These ads may come in the form of messenger ads, stories, videos, or static images across different platforms. 

Although paid, the costs of advertising on social media is far less expensive than traditional TV and print ads. This cost-effective strategy benefits businesses, from big companies to startups.

More and more people rely on social media platforms to explore new products and confirm their purchase decisions as these virtual spaces continue to have a bigger presence in our lives. Thus, it is also important for you as a business owner to have a strong social media presence that can keep up with the ever-changing times.

Hiring a Social Media Manager

Social media is an awesome tool for marketing and other needs for your business. It’s an entire ecosystem with ads, engagement, scheduling, and other amazing features you can utilize. However, it can be overwhelming if you try to juggle managing your social media accounts and also run the other moving parts of your business offline. It’s also important to keep in mind that your contemporaries also use these platforms, thus establishing a strong presence becomes more challenging. 

To solve this dilemma, you need to hire a reliable person who can do this job. One social-media related job that is beneficial to business is social media management. Basically, a social media manager is a person in charge of your (business) social media accounts. Some of their basic skills revolve around monitoring, scheduling and executing social media activity to make sure your business maintains a social media presence.

What You Should Look For In a Social Media Manager

Hiring a social media manager is critical to your social media presence. While there are specific skills needed for the job, these general skills are also essential and can withstand the fast-changing landscape in the virtual space.

• Versatile writing

One of the most utilized skills of a social media manager involves writing. From posts and ad content to text in banners, the role requires excellent command of the English language and versatile writing styles. Moreover, different social networks also require different communication styles–for example, LinkedIn posts are expected to have a more professional tone, Tweets need to be short but catchy, and Facebook/Instagram captions tend to be more candid and light.

Aside from perfect grammar and versatility, a social media manager’s writing must also be engaging and effective. With the amount of posts that a user scrolls through in their feed, your business’ posts must grab attention and conversion.

• Research and strategy

It can be hard to keep up with the constantly changing online trends if you’re managing your business full-time. Thus, it is the job of a social media manager to check out the latest ‘trending’ content, but also filter what would be useful for your brand. They also need to constantly research what competitors are posting, what are some attention-grabbing posts, and the rationale of why they have to post this type of content.

• Knowledge on SEO 

While we think of SEO as a part of web content and blog writing, SEO-optimized social media posts can have a positive impact on your brand. A social media manager must use the right keywords to attract interested demographics, and also provide links to your other content whether they are in social media or not. 

• Customer Service

When a brand has a social media media page, visitors assume that they can message in their queries or concerns. As such, a social media manager must know basic customer service skills and how to communicate properly with customers. Moreover, they should also have solid knowledge about your brand and services so they can answer queries with confidence.

Benefits of Having a Social Media Manager

• Having someone in charge of your social media content.

The competitive nature of business added with the fast-paced innovations in social media can overwhelm both parties. You as an owner can quickly fade behind the background if you can’t keep up with social media platforms and trends, and customers can easily be overwhelmed by so many ads, posts, and content forms that nothing sticks out for them anymore.

A social media manager focused on your business can diversify your content, schedule them accordingly, and keep up with the latest trends. In short, they can employ a content strategy and calendar that is also appropriate for your brand and customers’ level of awareness. They can also make sure that your content is on brand and is strategic. They can even narrow down the social media platforms you have to focus on.

• They serve as reliable contact persons for your brand

Because of the growing social media community, there is also an influx of businesses entering the virtual space. As a result, customers become more skeptical and critical of the products they see and buy. How will you build their confidence in you and your products?

Having a dedicated person whose expertise lies on creating, scheduling, and analyzing the performance of your content will do your brand wonders. Moreover, through engagement via comments or direct messages, your social media manager can also be a point person of authority about your brand, or even the niche you are in.

• Social media managers help maintain a consistent brand personality

Do you want your brand to appear formal? Fun? Sassy? Your products and content should carry this personality throughout, making sure you appear consistent in the eyes of your customers. However, branding can get lost if you will depend solely on templates or automated responses.

Thus, aside from putting out information about your brand, social media managers give your social media pages a human touch. The beauty of having a real human being who controls your pages is that they can contextualize responses and content while keeping in mind your brand guidelines.

• Unlike AI, they can foster genuine engagement.

AI has its advantages, but the warmth that a human being behind a screen offers is different. This especially applies in your brand’s engagement through comments and direct messages. 

Aside from the unique responses that a social media manager generates, they can also make the comment section a more lively place especially if they are masters of engagement. Proper moderation of this particular space in your page can even encourage strangers to reply to each others’ comments. These interactions create conversations beneficial to your brand. 

Because of these organic interactions, your posts will always be lively and chances are they will appear in your followers’ feeds again.  These interactions benefit both you and your customers; Your brand gains more visibility and loyalty, and your customers gain friends, meaningful interactions, and gain a voice in a safe space. 

• They serve as customer support.

Not all people have access to phone hotlines, or are not comfortable with speaking to a customer service representative. Thanks to social media and social media managers, addressing customer concerns is now easier through comments or direct messages. If your page is quite big or if the community is close-knit, customers can discuss among themselves to seek information that they need. Thus, some social media managers even move to the moderator/facilitator role. 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the specific skills social media managers should have?

Some of the most common technical skills of social media managers include:

• Content Creation – create relevant content for your brand, in the form of text posts, images with captions, reels, Tiktok videos, stories, ads, etc.
• Monitoring analytics – social media managers must measure analytics so they would know what works or not, and manage their time and resources efficiently. 
• Measure social media ROI – return of investment, or ROI, is important to measure the performance of social media campaigns. This can come in the form of engagement, conversions, brand awareness, etc.
• Devise a content/social media strategy – a social media manager must be strategic in putting out posts, in order to properly promote a product or your brand
• Plan and schedule content – in relation to a content strategy and analytics, the schedule of a brand’s social media posts is essential for maximum ROI
• Audience engagement – engagement or interaction with social media users are important to promote brand visibility and loyalty.

2.  Can I outsource my social media manager?

Many companies outsource their social media manager for many reasons, but the most prominent advantages are:

• Cost effectiveness – labor costs are lower in countries where outsourcing is popular, such as in the Philippines or in India.
• Expertise – outsourced social media managers are typically knowledgeable already in their craft. This saves you time, since you then don’t have to learn how social media management works.
• More hands in the in-house team – because you now have a person dedicated to your social media accounts, your in-house team can focus better on your products and other unique aspects of your brand.

Process Ninjas

If you are looking to outsource someone with social media management skills, an outsourcing company in Asia called Process Ninjas can help you. They offer ninjas who can help you in different tasks. They have virtual assistants, community managers, customer support, or content moderators for your social media channels, ensuring that your brand’s online spaces are 100% focused on.

Moreover, if you need other services that are unique to your brand, they can also build an exclusive team for you!  Rest assured, their main goal is to let your in-house team focus on their respective tasks. You can then leave the rest to skilled ninjas with backgrounds in IT, marketing, sales, customer support, gaming and other fields.

Learn more about their services and visit www.processninjas.com.