Welcome to 2016, where if you’re paying attention to the noise around you, it’s telling you that it’s time to get your business up and running on social media.
Long gone are the days where customers call your 1-800 number, listen to a recording, scream at the recording to connect them to a human, finally speak with a human, repeat their conversation, scream at the human, feel their needs are not met, and lack a witness to pay testament to the brand’s shortcomings.
Now, people expect a brand to not only meet their needs, but also right their customer-service wrongs. What happens if the brand doesn’t do this? They get blasted on social media.
Consumers are more connected than ever – and it’s not just conversations about their latest vacation, the new baby, or the results of the What Disney Princess are You? quiz that permeates the digital space. Social conversations are now pointed directly at brands, companies, and products.
The question becomes: are you – the brand – part of the conversation? #deep
If you’re not, now is the time to jump on the bandwagon (nevermind the fact that you’re a little late to the game, because you know what they say…better late than never). There are brands out there that dominate online conversations and drive online promotions, all while becoming industry influencers.
So, what’s your first move? It’s probably time to devise a business social media strategy, or at the very least, hire a social media person.
Yet, what you still have yet to figure out is how this whole social media thing works anyway, and what makes a good social media person good? That’s why we’ve put together this handy list of recommended skills for your reference.
What qualifications should a Social Media Manager have?
- A deep understanding of social and digital marketing strategy, including the inner workings, trends, and user base of all social platforms.
- An understanding of branding strategy.
- Motivation to stay up to date with technological, marketing, PR, and digital trends and updates.
- Excellent writing skills.
- A creative thinker with an eye for design.
- Fluency in the Adobe Creative Suite, like Photoshop & Illustrator.
- Public Relations knowledge & experience including consumer outreach, risk management, and damage control.
- Return On Investment (ROI) Management that demonstrates your social strategy is driving tangible business results.
- Ability to interpret data across all platforms and form a logical forward-moving conclusion, including knowledge of Google Analytics.
- A basic knowledge of HTML & CSS coding languages, at the very least.
Holy skill sets, Batman!
So let’s set the record straight… in order for your social media manager to execute a successful social strategy for your business, she must be both a right and left brain thinker, possess the knowledge and experience to develop a strategy that drives results, and have all the skill sets to implement that strategy on the creative front end and the coding back end.
But let me guess… your college-age niece is really good a social right? I bet she’s on her phone all the time.
