Starting a Career in Social Media Management

Social media management is when you help a business, brand, or individual to manage their social media presence. It is when you represent your client on their different social media platform such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Apart from representing your client on their social media platforms, you also create and schedule posts.

Who can be a social media manager?
You can consider starting a career in social media management if you
● Are creative
● Love writing
● You are teachable

Job duties of a social media manager

The job of a social media manager is not limited to posting on social media. We are going to look in-depth at some job duties of a social media manager.

1. Profile setup and optimization: As a social media manager, you will need to set up accounts for business or company who does not have a social media account. Some have accounts that are not optimized. You also need to optimize these accounts

2. Research and create relevant content and content calendars: it is the duty of a social media manager to create relevant industry-based content and also content calendars.

3. Creating graphics: A social media manager should be able to create basic graphics. Some social media platforms are media sharing platforms and need good and beautiful graphics to help a business stand out.

4. Scheduling post: A social media manager is to schedule posts and should be consistent with this. There are tools for scheduling posts. A social media manager schedules Contents and posts based on when the audience is more active on social media. It is the duty of a social media manager to know what to post and when to post it.

5. Customer service: As a social media manager, you are representing a company or business on social media so you will be the one to handle and respond to all inquiries through post interaction or through direct message.

6. Evaluating and Reporting. KPIs (key performing indicators): are very important when it comes to social media management. It is by evaluation that you know if you are getting results on each platform. A social media manager is to know which KPI to measure and also give a detailed report of activities over a period of time which could be weekly or monthly depending on what the company agreed on.

Skills Needed To Be a Social Media Manager

In as much as it is easy to start a career as a social media manager, you still need to get some basic skills; this will help you to perform better and stand you out in your new job.

Here are some of the important skills you need as a social media manager

● Communication skill: ability to communicate well is very important. Some may have this skill while for others, you may need to learn how to communicate. Effective communication cuts across both written and spoken. Communication when writing content and also when dealing with clients.

● Research: a social media manager does a lot of research when it comes to content creation, content curation, and also social media trends. All these mentioned are important to run a successful social media platform. You need to be current with social trends and updates on each social media platform.

● Copywriting: Copywriting is the process of writing to persuade people to sell to them. Copywriting is different from content writing. In copywriting, you should be able to convince your audience to buy something from you without forcing them. This is an important skill to have as a social media manager as you will be required to write sales copy for your organization or client.

● Graphic design: you may not need to learn this, but you need the basic skill of design as most social media platforms require beautiful media for optimization. People are always attracted to beautiful graphics, you need to learn how to connect with your audience using graphics.

● Customer service: a social media manager needs to know how to relate with customers on social media as he/she will be available to attend to their inquiries and respond to their comments.
And some others that are not mentioned here.

How to start a career in social media management

It is quite easy to start a career as a social media manager because you don’t need a university degree to do this. You don’t even need to have a degree in marketing or anything related.
All you need to do is take a course in social media management and also get relevant skills.
Below is a guide that keeps help you

1. Take an online or offline course. When it comes to online courses, there are lots of academies that offer courses in social media management and some other relevant courses. We also have some institution that offers offline training, it all depends on which is accessible to you. There are also some free online courses you can take advantage of and some at a subsidized price.

2. Take training on relevant skills. Earlier in this article, I mentioned skills you need to become a social media manager, you might need to take further training on some of these skills to help you further become deepen your knowledge.

3. Internship. You may seek opportunities to intern with companies that are willing to accept internships to help you gain experience in the job. Another thing you could do is to handle page management services for friends or family for free or at a reduced fee. This will help you build your experience and also learn on the job.

I hope this is helpful enough for you.

You may be thinking, how much can I even earn as social media manager. An entry-level social media manager earns between 60,000 to 80,000 naira. The amount increases as your experience and knowledge increase. The most beautiful thing is that you can make over 500,000 naira monthly working as a freelancer. This is beautiful right, I know but you must be ready to put in the work.

You can start with our Social Media Management Course.