How to Become a Social Media Manager

Being a social media manager involves more than posting memes and funny videos.

You need to be able to help companies achieve their brand goals. And that requires specialized social media marketing skills.

You should know the audience to target, the content to create, and the metrics to measure to create successful social media marketing campaigns.

That`s how you can drive conversions, build reliability, attract clients, and make more money.

To build a successful social media management career, learn the required skills. And this content walks you through all you need to know.

Learn the Social Media Management Skills

To win clients` trust and be hired, you should prove how you can help them perform the tasks to enable them to drive income.

The skills to consider are

Creating Attention-Grabbing Content

This involves creating content that persuades the audience to act, which requires copywriting skills.

A great copy shows how people can benefit by performing your calls to action.

That`s possible if you know your audience`s pain points.

Pain points are the problems people want to solve. And your copy will convert if it solves them.

You can know your audience's problems and create relevant content that converts by conducting research.

Researching includes spying on competitors' content performance.

That will enable you to see their content engagements. Based on that, you will know what people love or dislike about the business and create much better content that drives conversions.

Competitor research is easy to do if you use tools like Brand24. You only need to the competitors' URLs into the tool, and you will see the competitors` content engagements.

Here is content that explains more about how to do competitor analysis.

Besides you can check your social media analytics to see your content performance. The high-performing content shows that people are interested in your business and vice versa.

Replicate your high-performing content and create campaigns that perform well.

Optimizing Content for Social Media

For content to reach your target audience, you should optimize it for social media algorithms. That entails using keywords aligning with your relevant audience.

If, for instance, you are creating content about how to do social media marketing, you should mention the phrase social media marketing several times in your content.

Moreover, include hashtags aligning with your content as well.

That enables your content to appear on relevant social media feeds.

Learn how to use the right hashtags that can increase your content reach here.

And when people comment on your content, ensure to reply. That shows that you are a genuine person and increases trust.

You can also use trending topics. These are popular topics that can boost your content reach and brand awareness.

However, ensure to target topics that are related to your specialty. That will attract a relevant audience that can convert.

See more on how to find trending topics for your social media campaigns.

Setting Social Media Marketing Campaign Budget

Your social media marketing campaigns will succeed if you create a budget that aligns with your goals.

An example is if you have less than 1000 followers on your social media channels and want to reach 5000 followers in 3 months. That will need creating a lot of content, which requires

• Hiring Freelancers
• Paying for Designing tools
• Paying for ads
• Paying influencers

You need to measure your budget against these objectives to enable you to easily gauge your outcome.

You will increase your chances of being hired if you understand how to break down the budget required to suit their goals.

Learn more about how to create a social media marketing campaign budget in this content.

Master How Social Media Platforms Work

Image by Andrea Piacquadio: Pexels

Social media platforms are designed differently from each other. And your content will perform well if it aligns with your target platform.

To align with your social media platforms, consider the type of audience and content accepted.

Some social media platforms are mainly for entertainment, and others for professional purposes.

An example is LinkedIn, which is more about finding jobs and advertising businesses. That is different from TikTok, which is more for entertainment than professionalism.

That also helps understand your audiences` language and create content that suits them.

For example, you should use formal language for LinkedIn content because it`s mostly for professionals. But when creating content for TikTok audience, use informal language.

Besides, each platform has a specific content format. When marketing business on YouTube, you should use video content, while on Quora, focus on text content. Also, there are social media platforms only for photos and graphics, e.g. Behance.

Plus, you need to understand the content length accepted in each platform you target. There are long-form and short-form content platforms.

Long-form content is for platforms like LinkedIn and short-form is for platforms like Snapchat.

Apart from that, social media algorithms work differently. To increase your post reach, some platforms require posting more frequently than others.

For example, on TikTok, you can increase your reach if you post content daily, while on Pinterest, you can reach a wider audience even when you post thrice per week.

That enables you to create an effective posting schedule.

Learn Social Media Marketing Tools

To conduct effective social media management, you should understand how to use the required tools. 

Tools speed up marketing tasks and increase efficiency.

They include AI content generation tools like ChatGPT. You can use them to generate ideas for your social media content or prompt them to create your whole social media content.

However, to get better results, be specific with your prompts. This involves specifying a tone of voice, the audience`s intent, and the products or services names.

See how to prompt AI tools to produce converting content here.

If you have blog posts and want to convert them into videos, AI tools can help you create intriguing scripts. If you want to convert your videos into blog posts, you can use them as well and repurpose your content.

However, for your content to be high quality, you need to edit it, which can be time-consuming if you do it manually. To speed up this process, use tools like Grammarly.

Install it on your browser and it will identify your content mistakes and suggest corrections.

If you want to create graphics or edit pictures, you should know how to use graphics and design software.

Canva is one of the best graphics and design tools. With just the free version, you can access many features to design attractive graphics to grab your audience`s attention.

For videos, master how to use tools like Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Clipchamp, etc. They help create professional videos that align with your audience's needs.

You also need to know how to use marketing tools. With these tools, you can schedule, post, and track content performance for many social media platforms from one place.

That eliminates the need to navigate from one tool to the other, which wastes time.

GetResponse and Zoho Social are some of the best tools to use.

What`s better, with GetResponse, you can even create a website and email addresses and market your social media management business more.

See how GetResponse can help you increase income for your business here.

Get Social Media Management Experience

Image by Liza Summer: Pexels

Experience proves how you can help clients achieve their goals.

But how do you prove that you are experienced if you are just starting? Do this:

Create your social media platforms and set goals to increase a certain amount of followers in a particular period. Then work hard to achieve them and use your campaign results as proof to your prospects

Besides, you can reach out to companies and volunteer to manage their social media pages.

Ask them what they want to achieve and then create campaigns and be determined to achieve them to show that you are skilled.

That will expose you to the industry and make it easy to be hired.

Also, companies offer social media management internships. You can apply and try your luck. Such opportunities help you connect with experienced social media managers who can help you learn more about your industry and build experience.

Create a Social Media Management Portfolio

A portfolio helps you showcase your skills and experience to your prospects.

You can create a portfolio using your website.

Namecheap is one of the best tools to help create a website to market your business. It even has a free plan to help you get started without a budget. Here is a Namecheap review to check out more of its offers.

You can also use your social media platforms like Instagram and create a portfolio, as explained in this content: How to create a portfolio on Instagram.

For a portfolio to attract and convince clients to hire you, it should include samples that align with your target audience.

If, for example, you are a beauty product social media manager, don`t include SaaS product samples. You will confuse clients and reduce the chances of being hired. Add beauty product samples.

Also, include the results your samples generated. To do that, open your analytics, take screenshots of your content performance, and include it in your portfolio for your clients to see.

That will enable clients to determine if you are the best fit for them.

Client testimonies also help increase the chances of being hired. Therefore, if you get hired, ensure to ask your clients for feedback so you can build your portfolio.

Market Your Social Media Management Services

You don`t have to be perfect to find social media management jobs.

Provided that you have the basic skills and samples to show how you can help businesses achieve their goals, you are good to go.

Start by creating a resume.

A perfect resume shows your skill level, who you worked with, and the achievements you helped your clients get. That shows your value and increases the chances of being hired.

Check this content and learn how to create a social media management resume that drives conversions.

Now that you have a portfolio and resume, you can start marketing yourself.

One of the best ways to do that is to network with your fellow social media managers. Follow their social media pages and engage with them.

Interact with them to build relationships and increase brand awareness. Then reach out and ask if they can offer you jobs. If they can`t, they can recommend you to employers.

You can also join social media groups related to your business and interact with people. Offer value by answering questions.

That builds trust and authority, attracts people`s attention, and increases the potential to be hired.

People post social media management jobs in such groups. You can apply and get hired.

Besides, you can use freelance websites like Fiverr. Create a profile describing your social media management skills and how you can help businesses thrive. Then create gigs and market them.

This website is prominent for offering freelance jobs and gets millions of visitors looking for workers, which increases the chances of being hired.

Here is how you can use Fiverr to market your services.

Or you can use websites like Upwork and Problogger. People post social media management jobs on these websites, which you can apply for and get hired.

Here are more freelance writing websites that can help you land social media management jobs.

You can also do cold pitching, which entails reaching out to companies and introducing your services. When people are interested, they can hire you. This method helps find high-paying clients.

See how you can do cold pitching here.

Start Your Social Management Career

You can be a successful social media manager only if you help your clients thrive.

That entails learning how social media platforms work and creating relevant content that attracts engagement and conversions.

Then create social media profiles to showcase your skills and build a portfolio to show clients what you can help them achieve.

Later, start marketing your skills and you`ll attract clients and generate income.