A few years back in time, you might not even have heard the term “social media manager.” From its humble beginnings, social media has evolved into an increasingly inclusive sphere, connecting all areas of life and business. Social media has become the primary way customers view and interact with the company, and social media managers are quickly becoming the new customer service representatives.
With social media being such a crucial aspect of doing business, you want to make sure your manager has what it takes to do the job effectively. In this article, we’ll go over the five skills all the best social media managers have in common.
Skills the Best Social Media Managers Have
1. Design
It’s been found that social media posts with images get more likes, comments, and shares than those without. As humans, we have evolved to use sight to evaluate our environment, from the ripeness of fruit to a stranger’s social status, how a thing appears visually is crucial to us. Social media has also evolved to contain appealing visual content, such as images and videos.
For social media managers, designing and creating visual content is a particularly relevant skill. If your social media manager doesn’t take part in the design process for posts, you might want to re-evaluate their usefulness.
2. Copywriting
The value of good copywriting in social media cannot be overestimated. This is one of the essential skills for social media management. A social media manager’s work requires them to practice copywriting in many areas of the job, from designing posts to editing business profile. Great copywriters can get the reader’s attention and keep them interested. If your social media manager doesn’t have excellent copywriting skills, your posts won’t get as much interaction.
Good SMMs are lifelong learners and love taking courses and exercises to improve their copywriting skills and stay responsive to copywriting trends. They experiment with different copywriting approaches and tones of voice.
3. Public Speaking
Due to the quarantine initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic, live video is an increasingly popular means of communication. With so many platforms, like Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Zoom, you can live stream from virtually any social media site. According to a survey by IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), 47% of social media users worldwide have used live stream more than before, and over two-thirds prefer free, ad-supported service to subscriptions.
The live video gives social media a significant boost in reach and engagement. Live videos are provided preference on a platform’s newsfeed so the audience will see them first before other content. Live video allows you to directly engage with your audience in a few different ways, such as responding to questions, taking polls, and speaking one on one with audience members.
To ace live video streams, your social media manager should be great at public speaking. They should be able to build a rapport with the audience, really connect and take an interest in their questions or any issues they might bring up. If you have a shy social media manager, help them find a way to improve their public speaking and get them live to stream.
4. Customer Service
Social media has become a new form of customer support. According to a report by SocialMediaToday, approximately 67% of clients use social media platforms to resolve issues or make complaints. What’s more, 70% say that they have used social media to handle customer service issues at least one time.
Social media managers need to have people skills that are required for customer service. As much as they interact with customers through social media, they should have excellent conversational skills and be able to get to the heart of any issue. They should be informative and ready to answer all questions about your product or company. Your social media manager may be the only person from your company that customers interact with, so make sure that they have the right customer service skills.
5. Ability to Delegate
Last, and probably most importantly, an excellent social media manager knows how to delegate. There are two levels of delegation. First is the human level. Your social media manager should be able to delegate tasks to team members, manage their progress, and make adjustments. No one likes an overbearing boss, so look for a social media manager that lets their team handle the task on their own once it’s been assigned.
The second level of delegation is automation. An excellent social media manager should know where to apply their focus and where to use automation. There are many social media auto posters which save you time and effort by posting automatically, while also giving you insightful feedback into all areas of social media. Thus, when your SMM manager uses a Facebook poster and scheduler, it is not a sign of an idle worker skipping one’s tasks. This is often a sign of a skilled manager that chooses to auto-post to Instagram or to Facebook to take care of more demanding tasks. Automation tools help to increase their productivity and make your investments into their work well worth it.
Conclusion
Social media has become increasingly important in the business world, not only as a way to share content and promote products but as a way to engage with customers. As the face of your business, you want a social media manager who is personable and knows how to sympathize with customers. We hope that reading this article helped you to develop a better idea of what an ideal social media manager should look like and how you can coach your own where they’re lacking.
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