Social media has firmly embedded itself in our daily lives. The unsung heroes of this are social media managers who power businesses and public figures social media accounts. Social media management is an area of growth and opportunities as we have new expressions of social media such as live audio (Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces) and bold plans like Facebook’s change to Meta and the included Metaverse. Social media management isn’t just one thing but the conglomeration of various roles and activities and that’s what we are discussing today.

Strategy

Social media strategy is all about the big picture. The business or account has a goal and strategy talks about that goal, proposing ideas on how to achieve that goal. Defining the goal, be it more followers, greater engagement, sales or whatever else is all part of the strategy. To excel at this you need an understanding of people’s behaviour and their behaviour towards certain subjects on the various platforms.

Copywriting

Copywriters create the words we see in posts and captions on social media. This can go as far as blog posts in length. The copywriter’s job is to get the words right. In social media, as in life, it’s not just what you say that matters but how you say it. That’s what copywriters do for you, putting the words right. It is a fully-fledged skill on its own and a viable career or business opportunity.

Engagement

If you’re doing social media right then you will likely interact with people. This may be through questions, comments or your questions and comments to others. Engagement is an entire job because it is difficult to time. In a world where things are becoming or have become instant, the expectation is that business social media accounts should react in real-time. That means being ready all the time.

Community management

Community managers are the real heroes or at least the ones whose work we see. Community managers do just what their job title sounds like, they drive the community towards a set of specified goals for the social media account. This could be towards fostering conversation around a subject, encouraging the audience to ask questions or getting the audience focused on a particular subject. There are different types of community managers including Engagement managers and Moderators.

Moderators/Curators

Moderators, sometimes referred to as curators are used in very active social media communities. They are essential drivers of conversation or community engagement. They also provide prompts for discussion or group behaviour such as discussion on a current affairs issue relating to the social media account or asking people to post specific content such as pictures or videos. These people have the tough task of connecting community activity to the purpose of the account while keeping activities in line.

Media

Of course, social media is more than words. Even on social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter that are built on words, media such as images and video perform better with audiences. Media has become extremely dynamic with so many options and styles to choose from within the options. The job is not just producing images and video but understanding the brand, the audience and the message to be communicated to the audience.

Content calendars

Social media, from the individual perspective, may look like just posting about what you feel and are going through. From a business or organisation perspective a lot more thought has to be put into it. Think of a business, your social media posts will likely include product education, awareness, industry developments, Storytelling and testimonials. You don’t, or at least shouldn’t just throw these in randomly, you want to have a plan and a method as to how you will go about it. That’s what content calendars are for and they are integral parts of a decent social media plan.

Audit

Social media audits involve going through your social media and assessing your performance. Not the performance just in terms of numbers. When a social media strategy is created a plan is formulated to achieve the goals of the strategy. This plan informs the content calendar. Audits check how well the plan has been followed, how well it has performed and opportunities for improving the plan. Numbers are taken into consideration but the idea is to make sure that the social media account is doing the right thing.

Analytics

Of course, no process is complete without review. Social media analytics involves the use of data to glean insights. Social media platforms will provide you with Analytics data to show you how the account has performed. The job of an analyst is to interpret the data and find opportunities to exploit corrections to make. The analyst reconnects the data we get from reports to the social media strategy that we started with.