The Vital Competencies of a Proficient Social Media Manager

A function that was formerly considered unimportant by most companies is now considered to be one of the most crucial in the marketing department.

Of course, we’re referring about the position of social media manager.

Social media marketing is crucial for all businesses, no matter how big or little, because 58% of all social media users follow at least one brand.

A successful social media manager, like any senior marketing function, requires a wide range of abilities and characteristics to see opportunities, provide interesting content, and turn as many of your followers as possible into dedicated customers.

We’ve compiled a list of the top five abilities that a social media manager ought to have below.

If you’re an executive or business owner looking to recruit a social media manager, use the following five abilities as a prerequisite. Take note of these talents and prioritise developing them while you look for possibilities if you want to become a social media manager.

Creativity

The ability to think outside the box and spot possibilities that others may miss makes creativity a crucial trait for every social media manager.

Most people think you’re either born with or without the ability to be creative. The vast majority of academic research, however, presents a quite different picture, suggesting that creativity is a skill that can be honed and improved upon, or ignored and eroded.

In the late 1960s, Dr. George Land, an expert in the field of creativity, developed a battery of tests with the intention of assisting NASA in selecting engineers and scientists who could think outside the box when faced with a challenge.

The examinations were given to the kids at age 5, then again at age 10 and one more at age 15. Dr. Land has also administered the exam to grownups.

I find Dr. Land’s test results to be rather intriguing. He found that five-year-olds, on average, scored 98% on the creativity scale. By ten years of age, the score had plummeted to 30%. The score dropped to 12% at age 15. Lastly, individuals scored a very low two percent on the originality scale on average.

These results led Land to the conclusion that “non-creative conduct is learnt”; that is, most individuals adopt a logical, methodical approach to solving issues, not because they lack the potential to be creative, but because they haven’t practised using their creative abilities.

One need only look at the most popular campaigns on social media to see that taking risks and thinking outside the box may pay off in the form of much more brand awareness, media attention, and consumer interest.

About 90 million YouTube views were garnered by Volvo’s “Epic Splits” advertisement, which used the middle splits of ageing martial arts icon Jean-Claude Van Damme to demonstrate Volvo’s Dynamic Steering technology.

Taking a creative approach to social media is not the same thing as being a creative genius, but it may help you produce material that is both memorable and effective.

Copywriting

The more skillfully you write, the simpler it is to connect with and captivate your audience. For this reason, being able to craft compelling and persuasive prose is one of the most important skills a social media manager can have.

Excellent writing captures the reader’s interest and keeps it long enough for them to read the rest of the text, perhaps like it enough to click through to your website.

The value of excellent copywriting abilities in marketing is amplified in the increasingly noisy and distracting social media landscape.

Data demonstrates that tweets between 70 and 100 characters had the best interaction rate, despite Twitter’s 140-character limit. It’s the same thing on Facebook, where shorter postings (less than 40 characters) get 86% more interaction than lengthier, more descriptive messages.

The success, efficiency, and return on investment of your social media marketing efforts will all benefit from your ability to distil your message to its essence while still capturing the attention of your target audience.

Design

A solid grasp of design, and in particular the ability to develop visual material that stands out and looks professional, may help you run a more successful and engaging campaign on social media. This does not mean you need to be a master designer.

Data from studies reveals that material with many high-quality photographs performs better on social media than content with a lot of words but few images.

With an image for every 75–100 words, blog posts and articles receive twice as many shares as those with fewer photos, according to BuzzSumo.

Images not only increase the likelihood that your audience will share your material, but they also increase the likelihood that they will remember it. According to research by Brain Rules, individuals are able to recall around 65% of a message together with an appropriate visual, whereas they are only able to retain 10% without the image.

Given the proliferation of video content across social media platforms, the ability to edit such content is becoming increasingly important for any management of such channels.

As users of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter do not usually demand aesthetically perfect content, there is no need to become a design guru in order to achieve online success. Every social media expert would benefit greatly from the capacity to swiftly produce high-quality visual material.

Analytics

The ability to analyse data is crucial if you want to move your social media marketing from good to great.

Social networking is just another digital marketing tool used to increase profits. The ability to delve deeply into audience and activity data is made possible by analytics software; this is especially true for social analytics solutions like Facebook Analytics and Twitter Analytics.

The know-how to dissect and evaluate information gleaned from social media platforms, such as the number of likes, shares, retweets, and profiles of potential customers who would be interested in what you have to offer.