There is no shortage of tasks when it comes to managing social media. If you have have tried to run your own personal social media accounts, you know how time consuming some of these tasks can be. Sometimes something simple like uploading a picture to Pinterest can 15 minutes and result in anger and frustration. There are literally hundreds of different networks and tools to know about and use these days, all of them take certain time and effort. Every company should have their own unique approach to social media but here are 8 duties of a social media manager that are pretty consistent across businesses.
Out Of 100 Things, Here Are The Top 8 Duties Of A Social Media Manager.
1) Managing a publishing calendar, daily, weekly & monthly
As a company that relies heavily on social media for growth and exposure, your social media manager should have plenty of content to organize into a publishing calendar. Once the layout of the calendar is complete, the ideas have been flushed out and it's time to execute, we arrive at the second task.
2) Scheduling posts
Making sure to schedule all the content to go out on various networks is a crucial part to the execution of the publishing calendar. There are about 100 different tools to help you schedule posts across a variety of social networks. Some well known schedulers are Sprout Social, Buffer, Hootsuite, Tweet Deck,Socialoomph and the list goes on.
3) Curating content
The curation of content is a tricky subject. We know of some companies who love to share news and articles of other content creators. You can easily do that through RSS feeds on social networks or use something like embed.ly so embed content on your site. We also know companies that like to create their own content to keep their audience engaged with their company. Either way, a social media manager will be looking for content to write about or share. So #3 should really be research and content curation.
4) Engaging with customers, partners and fans
Any good social media team will know the importance of staying in touch with your partners, customers and fans on the different social platforms. If you're a company like Omaze, that partners with many companies, your social media manager might be interacting with over 10 accounts per partner each day. A manager can also be fielding 100's of customers inquires or fan comments. A large social media presence demands a ton of engagement. Virgin America, for example, responds to customer tweets very quickly and they have an incredible amount of conversation to handle everyday. And that's where we get into listening.
5) Listening to networks, blogs and forums for brand mentions and keywords
When you create a ton of content and actually start gaining recognition, people begin to talk about your company or brand. Everything from the good and bad to the ugly can and will be found on the web - so long as your company keeps making an impact. Knowing who is saying what, and when is crucial. There are many listening tools available to help monitor your brand mentions online and your manager should know about them.
6) Reviewing analytics and determining next steps
The reason marketers love social media is because of the instant feedback it provides in terms of analytics. Again, if you have a large fan base and you publish a post that really flops, you can look at the analytics to understand why and then adjust your strategy accordingly. Part of a social media managers job is to understand the analytics and make smart decisions on how to adjust accordingly.
7) Check in with the rest of the company for announcements to publish
It seems a bit obvious but you should always be knowing what's going on with your company and the aspects of it that you can highlight for good press. Anytime your company does something notable it should be mentioned in a clever way to help build your brand and grow consumer confidence.
8) Running experiments to optimize social media posts
A social media manager should live and breath online marketing. They need to come home from work and be excited to learn about new tools and strategies. They should be thinking about new ways to attract attention and grow their company, always. Everything around them should be inspiring. The ideal social media manager will have many social accounts that are non company related just for the use of testing ideas and proving theories. Discovering and experimenting are the keys to success.
What's Your Take?
So those are the 8 most recognized duties of a social media manager. Depending on the company one is working for the job duties will vary and we'd love to hear your input on the matter. What duties are you most overwhelmed by and what duties do you like the most? Please share your experiences below.
This article was written by Quintin Ford, a recruitment entrepreneur located in Playa Vista, CA. Quintin is the Founder of OCEAN | STREET and avid blogger and social media guru. Learn more about Quintin on LinkedIn.
