I’m constantly stunned into a moment of silence after another individual living in the 21st century with drones and hoverboards asks me what it means for me to be a social media manager.
I don’t mean this in a condescending way, because honestly it would have been me a few years ago naively inquiring the same thing. There’s truly no judgment here for not knowing, since I discover more each day what roles I should fill as the marionette behind a business’s social media movements.
The silence comes more from a place of wanting to capture this ever-changing, multifaceted career into a tangible job description.
All of these bolded titles intermix and work together in order to create the unique social media presence.
Voice & Vision Collaboration
Before any FB, IG, or Twitter account is created, there needs to be an understanding of the mission and vision. For a humanitarian aid organization, what are your core values, opinions, and goals; with that in mind, what voice will reach your targeted audience most effectively? The appearance for you will look much different than that of an entertainer’s or realtor’s or travel writer’s profile, but that’s as it should be! Collaborating these and creating a consistent voice across all social media platforms will be the underlying challenge.
Research Trends, Create Content, Schedule Posts (Analytics)
I put these three all together because they are synergetic. Without knowing what the trends are for your business/organization/profile, you’ll find it difficult to create worthwhile content. Scheduling posts seems obvious, but it goes a little deeper than “Let’s post once a week for our IG followers.” Analytics plays a big part in knowing when you receive the greatest amount of hits on a post – which hour of the day, what part of the world, what age and gender demographic are really digging your work, etc. Creating content is a very broad title for something that could mean anything from photography, to graphic design, to writing (whether it’s editorial length or tweet length…quite a significant difference!), to finding related news that you send out for your followers that they may have otherwise missed.
Build Relationships with Others
This is by far the most important and the most fun part of being a social media manager! Social media has truly transformed our world into a global community, and one of my favorite parts of the job is when I’m able to connect one of my social media clients with another business or organization that would be an awesome partner in the vision…because it’s all about the connections, the partners, the “we’re all in this thing called life together” mentality, even if that initial relationship begins .
What vibe are you aiming to create on your social media platforms? A proficient social media manager can help determine what you should visually create based on your vision, mission, goals, & current trends.
Handle Crises – Big and Small
If you ever meet someone who works in social media with a nervous eye tick or fidget, just chalk it up to their anxiety about a potential social media crisis! I’m being facetious, but it really is a concern of social media managers that they could easily send out the wrong wording, unintended message, or even an innocent enough post that then becomes the object of scorn because some current event occurs after you’ve posted it that turns your once harmless post into something highly offensive…it’s happened. There’s a whole process to engaging with people online who have responded negatively to a post or your profile as a whole. I won’t get into it in this post, but as a social media manager, just know it is one of the many roles!
Although there is even more involved like SEO, strategizing, an understanding of PR and marketing, this is a basic beginning to answer the question I’m asked without fail when I tell people what I’m doing with life (following my quarter-of-a-second blank stare to inwardly gape that so many people don’t know what it is!): “So, what do you even do as a social media manager? Are you just on Facebook all day?”
Sums it up! 😉
Contact me with any and all social media inquiries you have! I’m happy to help!
stay lovely,
the tall girl, aka Warrior Social Media Maven
the tall girl tells all 