How to Prepare Yourself for a
Social Media Job

In a previous article, we discussed the day-to-day activities and requirements of a social media manager. Being a social media manager is both exciting and challenging, especially with today’s digital marketing landscape becoming more and more competitive. You are not only responsible for creating a social media strategy and establishing a budget, but also building a strong social media team.

Social media-related jobs have similar challenges, albeit on different levels. While you may not have to set a budget as a social media executive, you still have to make sure that the campaigns you run are well within the allocated budget. Challenges such as creating editorial content and interfacing with influencers are also part of the job.

So, how can you prepare for a social media job? What are the skills required to succeed in a social media role? To help you enter this field and become successful in any social media job, we are going to review the best tips and tricks to follow in this article.

Know the Platforms

The basic element of social media job success is familiarity with different social media platforms. Gone are the days of spreading the same content across multiple platforms. Each social media site has its own format and needs to be treated differently. The more you know the platforms, the better you’ll be at organizing campaigns on each of them.

Social media platforms aren’t difficult to learn. You just have to be more familiar with the tools available on them, the audience segments that can be found on different platforms, and tools associated with the platforms you use.

It is also important to know the limitations of today’s social media platforms. While you can post longer content on Twitter as a tweet storm, the platform still limits the number of characters you can use for each tweet. The same is true with Instagram and LinkedIn, especially when it comes to content length and file size limits.

Know the Tools

The next set of things you want to master is the social media tools that are currently available. You can choose from hundreds of tools and web services. There are different types of social media tools as well. Brand24, for instance, is specifically designed for social media monitoring. HubSpot combines social media marketing with CRM and other advanced digital marketing tactics.

Other tools like Hootsuite are more for social media management. These are the tools you need to master. Naturally, you don’t have to be an expert on every tool on the market. You simply need to identify the tools that fulfill your needs and specific requirements perfectly, and then take steps to master them.

It is worth noting that brands and companies may have their own tools for social media marketing. However, if you are familiar with the best tools on the market, it doesn’t really matter which one you use on a daily basis. The features, the user interface, and the benefits offered by different tools are generally similar with a few minor adjustments.

Know Your Audience

The real challenge is getting to know the audience and what different audience segments really like. Your ability to get to know the audience determines how effective you can be as a social media specialist or manager. Fortunately, market research, audience insights, and other things you can do to get to know your target audience require skills that can be mastered.

Sites like findcourses.com are filled with courses designed to help you become a world class social media specialist. There are courses on findcourses.com that are meant to teach you how to effectively collect data and perform in-depth analysis, how to master social media analytics, and digital marketing courses in general.

A lot of companies use resources like findcourses.com to find suitable training programs for their employees. You too can actively browse through the catalog of courses on the site and recommend the ones your company should provide. Alternatively, you can choose to take some of the courses yourself as an investment for your career in social media.

Know Your Objectives

The ability to set key performance indicators (KPIs) and clear objectives is essential if you are pursuing a career in social media. Social media marketing is very measurable, which means you need to start every campaign or activity with clear goals to achieve. Being able to set clear objectives will also help you monitor the effectiveness of social media activities early – we will get to this in a second.

Objectives change from time to time. Social media is a very fluid area of digital marketing. Don’t be surprised to find big changes happening mid-campaign, especially when those changes are based on the way the audience respond to your contents.

At the same time, clear objectives let you manage expectations and be effective. The last thing you want is for management to expect unrealistic things from the social media campaigns you run. Instead of setting impossible objectives, learn how to measure potential KPIs based on the activities you have in mind so that you always have clear guidelines to follow.

Know Your Trends

Next, we have the ability to capture and follow the latest trends. While there are times when evergreen social media content is more effective, most social media platforms are where you find trends and unique social moments. Being able to capitalize on these moments and trends will make you an exceptional social media specialist indeed.

More importantly, you have to be able to utilize captured trends and make adjustments to your social media content. Remember when everyone was caught up in cinnamon challenge, or when employees of brands were involved in making mannequin challenge videos? Yes, that’s how you can really capitalize on social media trends to get closer to your audience.

Trends will also affect the key messages you put out. Even better, following the latest social media trends increases your chances of creating a viral content. When your content goes viral, you reach thousands – if not millions – of social media users without spending a dime. That would be a serious boost in reach and exposure.

Know Your Data

At the end of the day, social media marketing is as data-driven as other digital marketing instruments. Everything you do on social media can be measured when the right analytics tools are used. Even the platforms themselves now make data more accessible; this is why you can monitor the reach and engagement of your Instagram post from its Insights page.

Data-driven social media marketing is far more effective. Knowing how to collect and process data is the final way you can prepare for a bright career in social media. You need to know how to decipher the social media data you acquire from the audience. Simple things such as being able to do A/B testing on LinkedIn go a long way.

Data also lets you measure other details about social media campaigns. If you want to know the return on investment (ROI) for any campaign or a particular post, for instance, you can do so by comparing the cost of that campaign with the exposure and engagement you get in return.

There will be more social media jobs to grab in the near future. Companies are realizing the value of social media platforms more and more. That means there is no better time to implement the tips and tricks we discussed in this article than today.