I used to think that being a social media manager was not a lot of work.
As a matter of fact many people still don’t understand what community managers do. If you tell your parents you’re managing an online community they will most likely judge you and wonder if they did the right thing when they took you to school. The reality is, it takes a lot of brain power and commitment to be a social media manager. You need to be intention, understand what you want and before managing a community you need to understand if you actually like the company you’re working for. But before even being a social media manager you need to have the following skills.
1. Copywriting
Copywriting is the next best thing for any social media manager, you need to be able to create good copy that will attract engagement and clicks. Copywriting comes in handy when you need to promote work for clients. Make sure your copy allows describes the problem, gives you audience the chance to imagine if the problem was not there and then give them the solution. You need to know how to play around with your words otherwise you won’t make it.
2. Know how to design
You need to be creative if you don’t have the ability to think outside the box and create captivating content then you don’t have an edge. Know how to design visually appealing content for your audience using graphic designing tools like canva. Remember most people are very visual so you need to have basic designing skills.
3. Know how to be a public speaker
Use all the features social media gives you. So use Facebook live, Instagram Live and other video features that will give you the chance to interact with your audience. If you can’t do it yourself, make a program with different shows or short programs for the sake of engagement. People relate to videos a lot more than words at times hence why Facebook is also pushing people to do more videos.
4. Customer service
If you work for a company you need to have good customer service skills. There will be people who will be interacting with your content and some people might be very rude but you still need to learn how to respond to your audience in a professional manner.
5. Understand your audience
You need to take the time to understand what works best for your audience and why. You need to be able to understand what brings in traffic, why does it bring in traffic and what more can you do to get a business to where it needs to be. Knowing how to interpret data is a very important skill for any social media manager.
