There are many paths to choose from in a career in social media marketing — and social media marketing specialist is a pretty big one.
But do you know what it takes to work in this position?
In general, this professional has great communication skills and an understanding of the basics of marketing.
This person will also benefit from practical experiences in areas like consulting or public relations, because these will help when formulating strategies for clients.
The other important elements you need to be aware of if you want to become (or even hire) a social media marketing specialist are present in this blog post.
Keep reading to find out!
What’s a Social Media Marketing Specialist?
A social media marketing specialist is a professional working with or within an organization.
They help to monitor, execute and measure the social media marketing efforts of their employer across several different networks.
They create content for these companies’ brand promotions as well as company information that can be found on any number of popular platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Their strategies are responsible not just for overseeing what goes out into cyberspace but also for how it should come back.
It’s their responsibility to create new campaigns according to analytics measurements so that there aren’t too many surprises during campaign season.
When results aren’t immediately apparent, it is because this type of work takes time (and a lot of patience).
5 Aspects of a Social Media Marketing Specialist’s Routine
Here are five tasks every social media marketing specialist needs to master.
1. Creating and implementing social media campaigns
You can do this by identifying the elements that competitors use as well as aligning your goals with broader marketing objectives. Then, create guides for others who want to strategize like yourself.
2. Becoming a key player in the world of online promotions
You will be responsible for advertising, and this job includes using budgets wisely by employing strategies that are most beneficial to your company’s image or reputation on various platforms.
3. Being open to constant changes in the market
Social media is an evolving environment that needs to be understood.
You can’t just sit back and hope for the best. You need to stay ahead of trends to communicate your message effectively on social platforms.
4. Creating the right content for the right audience
It goes without saying that every business needs personas, right?
A social media marketing specialist must have this in mind when creating and distributing content across various platforms.
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5. Reporting and optimizing the company’s social media marketing investment
This professional measure results so that stakeholders know how effective the business’ efforts were at achieving those metrics.
They also identify areas of improvement for future campaigns.
Social Media Marketing Specialist: is it a good idea for a career?
Sure!
Social media marketing is definitely a solid idea because:
- Social media is everywhere.
- The salary of a specialist can be really good.
According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a social media specialist is just over $48K and can rise to an impressive $66k.
Of course, everything in this area can change super fast.
Social networks are constantly evolving. Some end after being at the top for so long; others reach success in a few months.
Because of that, the ability to adapt to remain effective is crucial to specialists.
What Skills Do You Need For This Job?
Speaking of abilities, we made this list of five essential skills that social media marketing specialists should perfect.
Social Media Marketing skills
This may seem obvious, but it is still very important for a specialist to have social media skills.
A person with this expertise knows what type of content works best on which platform as well as how to engage their audience by posting across different accounts or optimizing certain aspects such as images used in posts/tweets.
SEO skills
Social media marketing professionals who are not familiar with Search Engine Optimization have a hard time managing their social platforms due to the higher competition.
With SEO, you can get an edge on your competitors and be more successful in attracting traffic for blog posts and other pages.
The result? Better rankings on Google, which means qualified leads.
Research skills
If these specialists are in tune with what is trending on social media, they can use that information to their advantage.
They do this by learning about the new measurement tools competitors are using and staying up-to-date with popular topics through research skills like Google Alerts or Feedly, which helps them know how best to market products
Communication skills
Good communication skills are a must-have for any social media professional. You can apply them to fit your needs on all different platforms.
Knowing what words will work better than others depending upon who they need to reach is a relevant ability.
Flexibility skills
Flexibility is critical for specialists who need to be prepared with new features and trends on the fly.
After all, their job isn’t only about posting content.
It includes adapting to external changes so that they don’t become too much hassle, distracting the professional from what matters most: connecting with customers online through content strategy.
Tools Used by a Social Media Marketing Specialist
The tools that specialists use can help you with everything from scheduling to automatically sharing old content, and more.
There is a competitive market of scheduling tools but here are a few popular ones:
These platforms also provide analytics so you can track success.
Hootsuite in particular offers social listening tools to help you monitor the online conversations about your brand and competitors.
SEMrush, on the other hand, offers primarily content marketing tools, but also has a social scheduling and tracking platform.
And while Later is optimized specifically for Instagram, Sendible integrates with Canva so you can produce content in the same spot you’re scheduling it.
How Do You Become a Social Media Marketing Specialist?
There are many different ways to become a social media marketing specialist.
First of all, you can consider getting an education or training in order for it to be easier on yourself.
Besides that, here are 6 steps that can help you on your journey:
- Build a social media presence.
- Learn the basics of social media marketing.
- Learn how to measure social media campaigns with analytics.
- Be creative with your social media content.
- Follow social media trends.
- Create a portfolio of your social media content.
Wrap Up: Learning More About Social Media Marketing Specialists
Specialists of this kind are some of the most important people in any social media marketing team.
They have many duties, but they also need skills that can help other staff work on different projects while taking care of their responsibilities as well.
And if you want to read a great piece of content to expand your knowledge on this subject, check out our blog post on how to plan a social media strategy!
