Years after the first "Can we measure the ROI of social media?" blog post, the role of the social media manager has not evolved much in the ways of goal-oriented, metrics-driven marketing. It's possible that this is because many companies haven't figured out the right way to measure the ROI of their efforts -- so they don't know to hire someone that can help them drive real business results. It becomes a vicious cycle -- with little focus on the bottom line efforts from social media, companies relegate the social media role to people without much experience proving bottom-line results, and then once hired, those social media managers don't have experience proving those bottom line efforts.
It's a chicken-and-the-egg problem, but someone's got to break out of the cycle. Whether you're a social media job seeker looking for your next gig or a manager trying to hire your next social media marketer, keep on reading. I'll walk you through what other skills a social media manager should have besides "drive engagement." Here are the six roles that the best social media managers play.
1) Content Creator
Content is a key component in any marketing function, and social media is no exception. Even if you have dedicated bloggers and ebook writers, that content still needs to be adapted to each social network. A good portion of a social media manager's role is creating and adapting content for the specific networks. This includes positioning content in under 140 characters, creating images to accompany posts, creating variations of posts for each piece of content (since the lifespan of a social media post is so short), and even creating content from scratch specifically for growing a following on social media.
Skills Necessary
Copywriting, design, positioning, creativity
How This Drives Results
Adapting content specifically for each social network yields more clicks and leads. For example, in an A/B test, we found that tweets a link and an image optimized for the platform yielded 55% more leads than tweets with just a link. Adapting and creating content for each specific network is critical to driving results.
2) Marketing Analyst
As all marketing roles become more and more data-driven, a social media manager needs to be able to dig into the data, analyze that data, and draw actionable insights. That includes macro data -- like overall reach, leads generated, leads nurtured, customer cases supported -- all the way down to micro data, like individual experiments around content positioning. A successful social media manager will be able to look at data constantly to make smart decisions. Plus, they should be constantly testing new strategies, new content, and new campaigns -- running tests and analyzing the results every day to constantly iterate and improve their marketing efforts.
Skills Necessary
Data analysis, curiosity, ability run scientific experiments and draw insights from data, data presentation
How This Drives Results
Constantly testing and analyzing results helps you build new standards in your routine that are more effective. For example, that test we spoke about before was run by our previous social media manager -- she designed the test, implemented it, and measured it all on her own. And thank goodness she did -- it's having a serious impact on our social media efforts.
3) News Junkie
Being on social media is like being in a crowded room at a networking event where everyone is talking and things are happening all the time. A social media manager needs to be in the thick of it. They need to know what people are saying, what's changing on social networks and in the industry, and be able to react and respond accordingly. Furthermore, the social media manager can act as an extension of the PR team, connecting your team directly with journalists and reporters, which can result in broad coverage for the company beyond their existing reach. A successful social media manager will be able to find new opportunities for the company by keeping a pulse on the industry.
Skills Necessary
Content curation, hungry for information, professional on-the-spot communication skills
How This Drives Results
Staying on top of trends as they're rising allows your social media manager to newsjack, which can bring spikes in traffic to your website, and connect with journalists when they're looking for story fodder, instead of relying on outbound pitching (in other words, doing PR the inbound way).
4) Customer Service Rep
When someone runs social media, they are the voice of the company to many audiences, including customers, potential customers, journalists, and fans. They will constantly get questions and comments about their company's products, services, and content -- which may not always be positive. You need to be able to communicate with people of different buying stages (for example, customers and non-customers) and different dispositions.
Skills Necessary
Strong communication skills, adaptability, calm, desire to solve others' problems
How This Drives Results
Doing customer service on social media allows you to respond to customer problems in the way they want to communicate with you, and it can be a low-cost way of responding to customer issues compared to a phone call, which will typically require more time for the same response. Also, because social media is a public forum, your social media manager can use these opportunities to showcase your customer service as a company differentiator and amplify happy customer messages as a form of marketing.
5) Community Facilitator
Part of building a following on social media is helping that following connect with each other. True communities don't simply engage with the company or moderator -- they engage with each other, which actually scales your role much better too. But facilitating a community takes work, including asking questions to seed discussions and kicking out people who spam or otherwise detract from the community.
Skills Necessary
Resourcefulness, ability to connect people and stimulate discussion
How This Drives Results
There is immense value to your followers in not just interacting with your company, but also others like them. According to an MSI study, increased engagement on community sites can result in up to 25% increase in revenue. In order to grow your company's following so that you can do all the other things you care about, your social media manager needs to help your community get value from each other. Here are a few tips for the community managers out there.
6) Funnel Marketing Manager
Social media is a powerful tool to expand the reach of your content, attract visitors to your website, generate leads, and nurture them to become customers. That means a social media manager needs to be able to pick and share content in a way that will accomplish each of those goals.
They need to share content that generate leads, and run new campaigns to find the best ways to do lead generation via social media. A social media manager also needs to engage one-on-one with potential customers who are considering your product or service, or simply need your help. Social media is particularly effective as a lead nurturing tool because prospects use multiple media (not just email) to consume information and social channels allow you to engage in a more timely manner.
In order to do all of this effectively, social media managers need to have a strong understand of the sales and marketing funnel, and which leads to monitor and nurture, and what content to use in getting those leads to the next stage in the process.
Skills Necessary
Funnel understanding, knowledge of content for each funnel stage, basic sales skills
How This Drives Results
Sharing conversion-oriented content on social media can attract more visitors to your site and convert them into leads for your sales team. More than 50% of businesses report they have acquired a customer from Facebook, more than 40% have acquired a customer from LinkedIn, and more than 35% have acquired a customer from Twitter. With the right person at the helm of your company's social media accounts, you could be one of them.
With this diverse and highly visible role, it's hard to believe that the social media manager position still has the reputation as an entry-level role anyone can just pick up. These seven roles are certainly in the back of my mind as I interview to fill this position. I believe that if we can change the perception of the social media manager role and attract and hire for these functions and skills, we will have a good chance of mastering the ability to measure and value the ROI of social media.
What do you think? Do you see other facets of the social media manager position? Share your thoughts in the comments below. And if you think you have the drive and the skills to be a Social Media Manager for HubSpot, you can apply here.
6 Jobs the Best Social Media Managers Actually Do
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