What Does a Social Media Manager Do for Businesses?

Transcript: Social media for businesses might seem simple at first. You log on, post something about your business, log off, and repeat the next day…right? Wrong.

If that was the case, there probably wouldn’t be a need for social media marketers.  The truth is, social media is complicated, and the list of social media manager responsibilities is bigger than you might think.  You need to be on the right platforms for your audience, create content that will engage with users, continuously interact with people who follow you, make strategic management decisions based on your account’s analytics…and I haven’t even mentioned social media advertising yet.  That’s a lot to handle, especially if you’re already managing a business.  Partnering with an experienced social media agency or hiring a social media manager can take a lot off of your plate. But before you make a hiring decision, exactly what does a social media manager do for businesses?

Stay tuned for the answer.

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1. Researching your business

Before making any big moves on your behalf, a social media marketer will need to do their research. This includes gaining a deeper understanding of your company and its goals, your industry, your competitors, and your audience.  What your social media manager learns in their research will help determine which platforms are worthwhile for your business, what content will resonate best on those platforms, how to approach your social media ads, and how to stand out among other businesses and their social media marketing efforts.  A good social media manager will use their research to create a social media strategy that is focused on achieving your business goals, all while communicating their plan and their findings with you so you know what they’re doing to get results. And they won’t research once. They’ll continually analyze the online environment to make informed decisions for your campaigns. 

2. Managing your social media content

You can’t have a social media account without content. Wait…I should be more specific.  You can’t grow a social media account without engaging content.  What social media marketers do after researching your business is create or curate engaging content for your social media accounts based on your goals.  They may share the same content on multiple platforms or create unique content for each. They may upload videos on Mondays, and link to blog posts from your site on Thursdays.

Again, their approach is determined by research, and also enriched by the analytics available from different platforms (more on that later).

Your social media content includes graphics, photos, videos, and the copy to go along with each element. 

Some social media managers may use tools like Canva and Adobe Spark to create professional graphics or tweak photos, while others may be more familiar with advanced tools like Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. Some marketers may schedule content with Buffer or Hootsuite. It doesn’t really matter which tools they use. It’s more about the content they share. A social media specialist may share written content from your website, or post relevant industry content from other publications.

What they choose depends on your audience and, yes, your business goals. On the advertising side, your social media manager will decide things like what content to promote, what copy will work best, and who to target with your ads so you generate leads and sales for your business. With the right strategy, you’ll begin to see more people interacting with your business on social media.  To keep those people engaged, your social media manager should interact with them, which just so happens to be the next responsibility I’ll go over in this video.

3. Interacting with your audience

Traditional marketing, like TV or billboard advertising, doesn’t really give your audience a chance to engage with your content.  Social media, on the other hand, creates a two-way channel of communication.  If your social media manager shares a photo of a new product you’re selling, your audience can directly share how they feel with you. And your business can reply. And your audience can respond to your reply. And you can reply to their response.

And your audience can respond to your reply.  Your social media manager will know how to reply to reviews, answer questions, and respond to direct messages from your audience.  Fair warning. Your social media content can elicit both positive and negative responses from your audience. But any experienced social media marketer will have a plan in place if the comment section takes a negative turn. 

4. Analyzing performance

After they share your content or launch your ad campaigns, what social media marketers do (or should do, for that matter) is look at your analytics.  Whether they want to know how to improve future posts, or get a better return on ad spend (ROAS), tracking analytics is necessary for continued social media growth.   If your social media manager just shares links to your blog every day or launches an ad campaign without checking how it’s performing, they might see positive results, but chances are they’re missing out on opportunities to boost engagement. 

And an experienced social media manager won’t just stop at social media analytics. 

It’s likely you want to refer people to your website from your social media accounts, so they can do things like read your content, sign up for your emails, or purchase your products.  This requires using a tool like Google Analytics, so you can see how many people are coming to your website’s pages from your social media accounts, how long they’re staying, or even if they jump to other pages on your site.    This all has to be set up on the back end of your website, and you can learn more about implementing Google Analytics on our blog.  Now I hope I’ve given you enough information to answer the question, “What does a social media manager do?” But honestly, I’ve only just scratched the surface. A lot of important decisions go into creating and implementing a successful social media strategy, and every business’s strategy is different, so what your social media partner does every day depend on your needs. If you’re looking for more information on what social media managers do, what social media marketing agencies do, or even what social media marketing services are, we have a ton of resources on our website.  We also have a breakdown of our social media services on our site if you’re looking to partner with a social media marketing agency.  And before I go, we’d love it if you’d give this video a thumbs up, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and hit the bell for the latest in digital marketing. Thanks for watching!