Social media managers have to juggle a presence on multiple social media platforms, from Facebook to Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram, and more. Audiences vary on every social media platform, with different usage habits and preferences, so content has to be customized for each social network and posted at the right times to maximize engagement.
The job of a social media manager doesn’t end with creating a social media calendar and scheduling posts across platforms with social media management software. Keeping your audience engaged means staying on top of the latest trends and offering value in the form of interactive content, videos, and contests, managing social media advertising campaigns, monitoring analytics, and, of course, monitoring your brand’s social media presence and readily responding to comments and questions.
In other words, social media management is anything but simple, although the job is a lot of fun for those who are well-suited for the role. So what does it take to be a successful social media manager? To learn more about the most important characteristics of social media managers, we reached out to a panel of social media pros and asked them to answer this question:
“What’s the most important trait for a successful social media manager?”
Meet Our Panel of Social Media Pros:
Keep reading to find out what our pros had to say about the most important traits for success in the social media management field.
Marissa Smith
Marissa Smith is a digital communications manager for The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF), a nonprofit in the DC area. Her day job is managing digital content and social media for HJF, and her night job is helping scientists tell stories. She’s worked as a social and communications manager for the ‘internet millionaires’ and for Fortune 100 companies like Marriott.
“The one trait that a social media manager must have to be successful in their role: the drive to learn.
Social media is evolving, constantly. But beyond needing to stay on top of algorithm changes, social media managers have to be able to translate goals to tactical, actionable, snack-able communication efforts. For me, with a company heavily focused on science and medicine, I have to be able to translate difficult, complex topics in a factually accurate and concise way that honors both the goals of the strategy and the integrity of the research. Without being passionate about learning, I’d never be successful.”
Rahul Kumar Singh
Rahul Kumar Singh is a Content Marketer and Search Engine Optimizer.
“Here are the most important traits for a successful social media manager:
- Understands the brand
- Knows how to ‘speak’ as the brand
- Understands the target audience and their needs and interests
- Knows how to measure results in all of the different ways
- Cares about the brand and the audience
- Knows the many different tools needed to effectively execute
- Knows the many different resources available to the company
- Knows the value of content style, diversity, and impact
- Knows they don’t know it all and is willing to ask for help when needed”
Matthew Ross
Matthew Ross is the Co-owner and COO of The Slumber Yard, a leading sleep and mattress reviews website dedicated to helping consumers improve their sleep.
“In my opinion, the single most important trait for a social media manager is discipline. In other words, social media managers need to see the forest through the trees. They can’t get too caught up in pop culture trends, politics, or comment trolls to the point where they post content that is potentially damaging to the brand or company. They need to keep the big picture in mind and constantly ask themselves whether the scheduled posts will offend any one person or groups of people. Let’s face it, social media posts live on forever, so one post that may be seem fine and funny during one particular point in time may backfire and become an issue nine months later as political and social environments change.”
Myasia Burns
@myasiaburns
Myasia Burns is currently the Social Media & PR Manager at Red Ventures, a multi-billion dollar portfolio of digital companies. She’s worked in social media for five years.
“The most important trait for a successful social media manager is adaptability. For example, having a content calendar is an important tool, but being flexible enough to jump into a currently trending topic is the key to staying relevant. Or, just because you’ve spent hundreds of thousands on a particular platform in the past doesn’t mean your audience will stay there forever. Being able to grow with technology, your audience, and your industry can make all the difference in finding success.”
Marko Saric
Marko Saric is a content marketer, blogger, and founder of HowToMakeMyBlog.
“The most important trait for a successful social media manager is being able to see opportunities. You can be a good copywriter, you can be witty, you can be a good communicator… but if you’re not able to spot an opportunity and see its potential, you will not do as well. Seeing potential in a topic, event, or a trend and being able to connect it with the brand you’re representing is a very valuable trait in social media management.”
Polly Kay
Polly Kay is the Senior Digital Marketing Manager at English Blinds. She has over a decade of experience as a digital marketing consultant and senior marketing manager, serving a diverse range of clients ranging from SMEs to large international corporations and household names.
“There are a great many skills that an effective social media manager needs: An inside-out understanding of the relevant platforms, a high level of responsiveness, the ability to predict or even create trends, and knowing how to remain cool and professional under pressure, to name just a few.
However, the most important trait of a successful social media manager is knowing the account’s target demographics inside out, and being able to speak to them in a language that they understand and respond to.
Ultimately, this is what dictates the success of any social media account, regardless of its purpose.
Without this skill – which requires a combination of both hard work and intuition – even the most potentially valuable account or content will fall flat, or fail to reach its full potential.
Misunderstanding the needs, wants, morals, and motivations of one’s prospects, or even knowing all of these things but being unable to translate them into the appropriate tone and style for the audience, results in an immediate disconnect between the brand and its potential supporters.
This in turn bores, confuses, or even alienates what could otherwise have been viable prospects, who will turn to a competitor instead.”
Alycia Yerves
Alycia Yerves is an award-winning marketer and designer. She is the Founder and Creative Director of Alycia Yerves Creative, a marketing and design agency on the Jersey Shore. In 2019, her agency was named New Jersey’s Best Digital Marketing & Design Consultancy by LUXLife Magazine.
“I continue to believe that the most important trait for a successful social media manager is to always keep your eyes and ears open to external news and events and see how you can thread them into your content. Perhaps it’s something pop culture related, or a national conversation taking place that somehow correlates to your brand or mission, and it opens up an opportunity for your brand or community to create content for (or open discussion on) something timely and in focus. The engagement levels tend to skyrocket on these posts. But because these situations pop up without warning and are often a very quick turnaround in terms of designing content or writing copy – it is important to be adept in your role and be able to seize the moment. These instances become memorable. For example, Oreo’s blackout ad during the 2013 Super Bowl. They were at-the-ready and paying attention for a cultural moment they could jump on. And it’s six years later, and people still remember it.”
Shelby Rogers
Shelby Rogers is a content marketing manager at Solodev, a digital customer experience company. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading Jane Austen novels, petting any dog she can find, and marathons (both the Netflix and the running kinds).
“The most important trait for any successful social media manager to have is a knack for sounding human and building an engaged community. Social media marketers succeed by relating their company’s brand to real people. Too many companies – especially in the B2B sector – play it safe with social media. They get too afraid of connecting with potential customers because they don’t want to offend anyone or commit a social media faux pas. In the process, they sanitize their social media profiles, only promote the latest company press release, and lose the interest of a potential audience.
Successful social media management comes from seeing how each post connects or engages with an audience in some way online. If you want to have a strong brand presence on social media, talk to people rather than talking at them.”
Ciara Hautau
@Fueled
Ciara Hautau is the Lead Digital Marketing Strategist at Fueled. Ciara has a background in SEO, advertising, graphic design, and content management. When she’s not in her marketing world, you can find her traveling between continents or deep into a bowl of pasta.
“I have to say the most important trait is the ability to inject a brand’s personality into social media posts. This is a skill that is surprisingly very difficult to find. Most of the time I find candidates who are overly eager, using tons of exclamation points, and it doesn’t sound authentic. Or the complete opposite, creating posts that are too dry and dull. For me, it’s about finding someone who can hit that sweet spot of being witty, sharp, and also being able to fully own the brand’s voice and persona and can keep this consistent across social media channels.”
Kayla Kelly
Kayla Kelly is a Marketing Manager at Paypro.
“What does a social media manager need most? A love of engagement. While they don’t necessarily need to be doing live video chats with prospects and customers, they should enjoy connecting via comments and emails. If you are building up a brand’s following, you absolutely can not neglect your early followers. The few people who take the time to comment want and deserve the brand’s attention – as the social media manager, it’s your job and opportunity to connect with them.”
Ellen Sluder
Ellen Sluder currently runs marketing for RingBoost, the nation’s largest provider of custom phone numbers including local, toll-free, vanity, easy dial, and tracking numbers. She specializes in unlocking growth for high-potential businesses with a focus on brand building, marketing strategy, partnership development, and lead generation.
“I think the most important trait for a successful social media manager is the ability to move seamlessly between strategy and execution. A great social media program is both proactive and reactive. You have to be thoughtful about: what is your message, who is your audience, what channels are the best to reach them, who you should follow and keep company with, and what is the right content. A social media program should have a formal strategy and guidelines, and it should be executed methodically, on a daily basis. Yet, you also have to be able to respond appropriately (and timely) to engagement by your followers, whether comments, questions, shares/retweets, or reviews. And you have to seek out relevant content to engage with as your brand on other feeds. You have to develop a personality and humanize your business through your own engagement, which is real-time and also just plain real. That can be a vulnerable spot for a brand, and you have to have someone in the manager role that you trust to respond with the right level of insight, depth, and empathy that suits your company’s point of view.”
Yaniv Masjedi
Yaniv Masjedi is the CMO at Nextiva.
“If you’re going to be a successful manager of a company’s social media channels, you need to have a deep understanding of the different audiences on each channel.
For example, LinkedIn is no longer a stuffy business channel – it’s an outlet for remote workers and employees who are siloed off within their companies, it’s a place for executives to brand build, and it’s also a place where rockstars and ninjas go to try and grab attention. You can use LinkedIn as a boring, ‘Here’s how our company built our product…,’ or, you can put out some material that’s interesting to industry insiders.
“Over on Snapchat, you aren’t going to want to drop typical, ‘We help you with…’ ads. You’ll want to create witty content that speaks to the Snap demographic… skewing younger and independent.
Instagram is no longer just the playground of the 20-somethings. You can capture 50-year-olds and up, if you know which communities and tags to tap into.
For a social media manager to be successful, it all boils down to knowing how to use each channel correctly.”
Ashleigh Ostermann
Ashleigh Ostermann is the communications manager at Schoolhaus, a start-up branding and marketing agency located in Orlando, Florida.
“From my experience, I have learned the importance of being organized and also that I must be flexible when it comes to social media. Things change, daily. Wait, who am I kidding? They change hourly. Currently, I manage four clients’ accounts, which includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Staying organized is key when it comes to staying up to date with different, relevant industry news. Each of my clients have a different target audience, which means the way we communicate with each is different. Maintaining content calendars and planning ahead is the only way my team is successful.
With that said, flexibility is equally important and goes hand-in-hand with staying organized. Because we have content calendars with drafted content, when things come up, we’re able to move and adjust planned content to different days. Timing is everything, so say something important happens in the news, we have to be flexible on when and what we post.”
Claire Shaner
Claire Shaner is a Content Marketing Strategist at BestCompany.com and has a background in PR, digital marketing, and writing.
“Every social media manager needs adaptability.The world of social media marketing is changing rapidly and doesn’t show any kind of halt. Social media networking sites come and go. If you don’t adapt, your social media success will be left in the dust.
In 2012, blogs were hot, but now a dramatically smaller percentage of people write or read blogs. In 2014, Snapchat was all the rage, but now it’s fading out of use and isn’t at the front of anyone’s mind for digital marketing or connecting with your audience. Instagram Stories were introduced in 2016 and are already a highly popular way to connect and advertise. What’s cool now won’t be cool a couple of years from now.
Many marketers are struggling to adapt to the rise in privacy on Facebook. Private groups and messaging limit advertisers’ ability to reach their audience. The tactics that have been applied before won’t work anymore. Only the adaptable social media managers will come out on top.
If a social media manager doesn’t stay up to date with what’s up and coming in the online world, your business will not stay current.”
Rennette Fortune
Rennette Fortune is the Director of Public Relation & Social Media Marketing for LRP Media Group, an innovative media giant serving millions of business and education professionals worldwide.
“The most important trait for a social media manager is business acumen. A professional who can understand social media likes and shares is good; however, a social media manager must be able to see the big picture of how social media will help push a business’s overall strategy. They must be able to identify and understand the metrics that are most relevant to supporting their organization’s goals, plus have the ability to execute a well thought-out plan that’s developed to ensure Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. lead to great outcomes for their organization.”
Lucy Rendler-Kaplan
Lucy Rendler-Kaplan is the Founder of Arkay Marketing and PR.
“In an industry where the only constant is evolution, how do you know what to look for when hiring a Social Media Marketing Manager? If you were looking for an accountant, you would know to look for someone with accounting skills who went to school specifically aiming to work in accounting, but very rare are there marketing managers who possess an actual degree in marketing. And that’s ok! Because I believe that if people have these 10 traits, they will be just as good (and usually better) than someone that spent four years or more studying what I have been focused on learning for the past 16.
1. Boundless Enthusiasm: Great social marketers have passion for
what they do oozing out of them. You never doubt they love this field, and you will never hear them say ‘God. Work is SO boring.’
2. Creativity: Great marketers don’t do things ‘the way it’s always been done.’ It isn’t that we’re trying to reinvent the wheel, but I’d argue that we’re always trying to look at that wheel in a way that no one else ever has before. And we can make you look at it that way, too. Great marketers are willing to take risks with what some may call a ‘crazy idea.’ They aren’t afraid to fail because the WIN feels so good when those ideas connect. I’m willing to bet these people have notebooks full of ideas scribbled down, and at the ready wherever they are and whenever ideas might come.
3. Loyalty: I might not drink the beverage that I worked on when starting my marketing career. In fact, I actually drink their main competitor daily, but I go on auto-pilot if I hear someone say something about that first brand that isn’t true. Great marketers don’t just work for a brand, they live that brand. That brand’s products or services are part of their daily lives.
4. Know Their Audience: I always think of the line ‘I’ve made a living out of reading people’s faces…’ when I think about what I do. You generally only have a couple of seconds to grab someone’s attention, and great marketers need to be able to tailor their message (I hate the word ‘pitch’) to different people so it makes sense to THEM. For example, I’m not going to try to sell someone in their 80s on the benefits of coconut water for strenuous workouts, nor am I going to talk about why a mental focus supplement is great for students, to a mom with two kids in her grocery cart and a very pregnant belly.
5. Adaptable: No matter how much you plan, or how good you are, problems arise. Plans change. New legalities pop up. A great marketer can pivot and adapt and switch their entire focus at any point in any project. They don’t get too tied into one plan.
6. They are Great Listeners: If you marketers are anything like me, you love to watch people. Find out what they like, where they go, what they do. What their habits are, what makes them NEED a product…We know what questions to ask to help draw people out and allow us to get to them, when we begin as total strangers.
7. They’re Great Sales People: It might be a cliché, but it’s repeated so often for a reason. Great marketers CAN truly ‘sell ice to an Eskimo.’ And they can get that sale before the Eskimo even realizes he needs ice. If you ever come across someone in marketing that hasn’t made sales, or thinks they don’t or won’t need to, move along! If sales puts items on a shelf, it’s the marketers that take it off, and that is because they know how to communicate clearly and show people WHY they need your product or service.
8. See The Big Picture: It’s so easy to get bogged down in details, who needs to go where, looking at analytics, becoming overly focused on wanting to attach the brand to a specific event…it can be hard to take a step back, but we need to. The overall goals of the company must always be top of mind, and our first thought when deciding what to get involved with, what can wait, and what we can pass on.
9. Storytellling: You definitely want someone that can tell great stories that not only draw people in, but are able to relate to. To get people excited about and choose your company over any others in the same category, you need someone that can get people to FEEL deeply and emotionally connect with the stories you are telling. You want someone that can get people to see themselves already using your brand in their lives, not just thinking it might be fun to try once. You want consumers, both potential and existing, to see themselves in the brand stories you’re marketing manager is telling.
10. Team Player: Great marketers know they don’t work alone. Marketers’ best work is not born out of a boardroom or silo. Sales, finance, logistics…marketing is dependent and must work well with all of the employees in these various divisions. Teamwork is KEY to great marketing, and great marketers are humble enough to realize this.
I wish top 10 lists went to 11. There are so many other qualities that great social media marketers possess.”
Miné Salkin
Miné Salkin is a writer & award-winning digital content producer with a passion for helping brands grow. Originally from Vancouver BC, you may see her sipping Tim Hortons coffee while writing content strategies and articles at BrandMinded.
“The most important characteristic or trait for a social media manager all lies in their attitude. A positive attitude is crucial to be successful in social media – not only to engage with your customers and leave them with a friendly impression, but also to bounce back in cases where you’re dealt with criticism. A lot of people can get defensive in these situations, but it’s imperative to remain positive and upbeat – that way you can truly leverage social media to develop lasting, memorable impressions with your audience, customers, and future prospects.”
Carly Brasseux
Carly Brasseux is President and Owner of Carly Brasseux Consulting. As a relationship and problem-solving expert, she currently works with clients in marketing and sales strategies and special project management.
“One of the most important traits for a social media manager is to know the logistics behind your posts. People focus too much on the content like creativity of wording or photos, which isn’t a bad thing, but you also have to know the best hashtags, time of day to post, and switch up wording and images for each platform. Content is king, but distribution is the queen. If you’re cross posting a tweet to Facebook or Instagram, you need a different sized image, different hashtags, and to post it at a different time of day.”
Lisa Chu
Lisa Chu is the CEO of Black n Bianco.
“In my personal opinion and experience, the most important trait for a successful social media manager is curiosity and adaptability. Curiosity is an important trait because they need to be immersed in the social media world and be up to date on the latest trends, apps, and marketing strategies. Without that curious mind of exploring or learning something new, they will become stale and flat. Social media is also constantly changing, so in order for a social media manger to be competitive they need to be genuinely fascinated by it. Adaptability is important because they need to be sensitive to what’s happening in social media and adjust their content accordingly. Social media is rapidly changing and evolving. If you compare social media just two years ago to today, it’s a completely different landscape. Curiosity is the most important trait that will challenge social media mangers to adapt and implement the necessary changes to stay ahead of the competition.”
Samantha Edwardes
Samantha Edwardes is a Digital Media Marketing Specialist and the Social Media Manager for &co. pr. She has been honing her public relations, social media, and marketing skills for over 7 years. Having collaborated with a variety of businesses, from smaller brands to high-profile start-up companies, she has much experience in building brand recognition, maximizing networking efforts, and developing valuable relationships with both target audiences and the media.
“An important trait for social media managers is to not fear failure. Social media is an ever-evolving beast and, as managers, our role is to give a voice to brands and ensure that voice is heard within the noisy landscape. Finding the best way to amplify and connect to target audiences in genuine and impactful ways may take some trial and error in the onset. Each brand has a personality. Ask clients for help in developing that tone and honing in on relatable messaging. It is their brand – not ours. Don’t be afraid to pitch new ideas to stimulate the brainstorming process. Infuse your copy with more charisma, rather than less. I’d always rather pare down my language than have it be perceived as flat and lackluster. Behind every brand is a team – and our goal is to introduce them, and their product, as interesting, desirable and real.”
Julien Malet
Julien Malet is a Social Media Strategist at Online Optimism, a leading New Orleans digital marketing agency.
“Acute awareness of trends and change. One of the most challenging aspects of social media marketing is that the platforms and landscapes are constantly evolving. In this climate of change, one thing that worked perfectly last month could very well be obsolete by the next. For example, when Facebook had their data breakdown, the world of Facebook advertising was essentially turned upside down, with many social media marketers scrambling to keep client-satisfying numbers. The solution to this is to make sure your strategies are data-driven. Always test the waters to make sure your methods are still viable, all the while looking out for brand new methods, too.”
Bryan Stoddard
Bryan Stoddard is currently running a website called Homewares Insider that explores all things related to homes, interior design, furniture, and gardening. He’s also a passionate home designer who loves to tinker with DIY, design, and organizing schemes.
“A good social media manager is always aware of the ways things can change. Their job is based around staying on top of the newest trends and happening in their respective communities. But even more important than that is choosing the right way to communicate with their audiences. Their communication style will greatly depend on the brand and philosophy they’re representing. A more traditional and formal community will require a different communication style than a friendly online community focusing on teenagers, for example.
Because of that, it’s extremely important to decide on the style and way of communication before making any public announcements. Are you going to use colorful words and slang? Will the texts you publish be integrated with video, GIFs, and photography? These are all important aspects of building a good communication strategy.
The public, or the users of the platform, will come to depend on the way social media managers communicate. The routine a good social media manager can create can be used to increase enthusiasm or even calm down angry users. Because of this, it’s extremely important that it’s consistent and that the changes made are seen as a natural evolution of the communication style, and not as a simple rebranding.”
Margaret H. Geiger
Margaret Hoynes Geiger is the Owner of Twelve31 Media, LLC.
“It’s so important to have time management skills when it comes to managing social media accounts. As a social media manager, it’s important to set aside enough time during the month to create content, make sure the client has enough time to review and approve, schedule the content out, and create the analytics report that showcases your hard work. It’s important to manage your time wisely when juggling multiple accounts. Waiting to the last minute and feeling rushed when the end of the month approaches can cause the content to fall flat and puts pressure on the client to approve. I definitely recommend utilizing calendars (electronic or paper) as well as reminders so nothing falls through the cracks. Taking advantage of free scheduling platforms or, for greater access and benefits, investing in this technology is a great way to save time and allow you to work in a stress-free environment.”
David Leonhardt
David Leonhardt is President of THGM Writers, whose team creates and sometimes promotes great online content.
“Judgment is critical for a social media manager. Social media requires interaction in real time. Delegating social media to an intern could be a potentially existential catastrophe. That intern has to decide when to respond to a question, a flame, or a complement…and when to escalate it. Supervisors might not always be available, so that intern has to decide whether to wait or go ahead on his/her own. When responding, the intern has to decide what to say. We’ve all seen examples of how one misplaced, well-intentioned but clumsy comment on social media can bring down politicians, celebrities, and corporate leaders. Whoever manages a company’s social media should be experienced, familiar with the company culture, familiar with the social media platforms it uses, and above all, should have a well-honed sense of judgment.”
Hamna Amjad
Hamna Amjad is a Community Manager at Gigworker.
“The most important trait for a social media manager is excellent
communication, as a social media manager speaks for the brand.
They have to constantly post content online to build your brand’s message. You want someone who can convey your brand’s message and represent your business in the best possible way.
They have to help brands build connections with their customers through social media. They have to be good at the art of communication so that they can make each conversation with the customers stand out and be relatable.
They have to make sure that whatever they post online is meaningful, thoughtful, and able to generate a good measure of response from their audience. Their goal is to engage with their customers. A fully engaged customer results in 23% more profit, revenue, and growth potential compared to the average customer.
Moreover, they should have the ability to handle criticism and negative responses from followers as well and come up with a reasonable and timely response to resolve any issue.”
Olga Mykhoparkina
Olga Mykhoparkina is a Chief Marketing Officer at Chanty, a simple AI-powered business messenger and a single notification center.
“If you asked me about the most important trait two years ago, my answer would be keeping up to date with the trends. However, in 2019, social media marketing is no longer just about creating viral content. Social media algorithms aimed to make communication via social media more personal. That’s why today, I’m sure that the main skill of a social media expert is building personal bonds. Networking is the key to your great achievements in SMM. There are tons of threads, pods, and channels where social media marketers can discuss all urgent issues, exchange experience, collaborate, and learn. If you participate in at least a few of them, you will get more chances to make your brand recognized in social media.”
Charlie Patel
@charliepatel
Charlie is an serial entrepreneur serving as the CEO of several companies such as Ampfluence, an Instagram Growth agency, Triberr, a content and influencer marketing platform, 99 Robots, a digital marketing & WordPress agency, and Podcasts.com, a leader in the podcast hosting industry.
“There are a billion users on Instagram and Facebook. There are hundreds of millions on other social platforms. It’s hard to stand out and generate results for clients. Therefore, social media managers need to be resourceful. From unique content creation to creative content promotion, a social media manager needs to have depth both in his/her arsenal of tools and in tactics that work. Furthermore, the role of a social media manager has expanded as each platform grows and becomes more pay-to-play. Therefore, doing more with less time, less budget, and less resources is what separates the good from the great.”
Andrei Vasilescu
@DontPayFull
Andrei Vasilescu is a renowned Digital Marketing expert and CEO of a Money Saving platform in the name of DontPayFull. He has been providing cutting edge digital marketing services to various international companies and online coupons of various brands for years.
“A SMM must be super efficient with feedback tools. A social media manager of any businesses handles the marketing, promotions, and interactions of the business through the social media profiles of the business. The social media manager oversees how the social media strategy is working and how to improve the strategy to get better benefits for the business. With the help of different modern social media feedback tools, the social media strategy of any business can be easily tracked, controlled, and corrected accordingly. Therefore, a social media manager must be efficient in handling various online social media feedback tools in order to manage the total social media movement of the business. A social media manager with no or very little knowledge of online social media feedback tools is of no use, regardless of how many other traits he or she might possess.”
Alexandra Barz
Alex is the Director of Social Media at Spherical, a digital marketing agency specializing in paid and organic social strategy, content creation, and content management. She’s spent the last 7 years ideating and managing social media campaigns for hospitality and travel brands including Waldorf Astoria, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, Morgans Hotel Group, Wyndham Hotel Group, and Victor Private Jets.
“I think the most important trait for a successful social media manager is being able to adapt to change. Since social media is an ever-changing industry, it’s important to stay on top of new trends and platform updates. By proactively testing new tactics, you can get your clients ahead of what other brands are already doing. If those new tactics produce results, that’s great! If not, learn from the experience and adapt your approach moving forward. In a sea of sameness, it makes a huge difference to stand out by trying new things both creatively and strategically.”
Nicole Fallon
Nicole Fallon is a former business journalist who now is the CEO of Lightning Media Partners, a digital marketing agency. She specializes in copywriting, social media management, and public relations.
“Every good social media manager needs to be extremely detail-oriented and organized. In most cases, they’ll be managing multiple accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.), and they will need to know the best practices and hashtags (if applicable) for each platform they use. Attention to detail becomes even more important if the social media manager is working on accounts for multiple brands. It’s extremely easy to accidentally post to the wrong account when you manage them all from one place, but a good social media manager will triple-check not only the posting account, but the specific brand voice before hitting send. You should also be able to trust your social media manager to keep a watchful eye on comments and replies, and know how to handle the good, the bad, and the ugly. Again, being organized and detail-oriented is helpful here to ensure your social manager is engaging with followers and influencers in a timely and professional manner on each platform.”
Social media management is a complex role. You can make your job a little easier – and expand your reach and grow your followers – by installing social share buttons, so your visitors can share your content with their networks with a single click. When you make it easy to share your content, your loyal readers can help you get better results (with minimal additional effort on your part!).
