If you are a social media user, you may have just read a Tweet, liked a Facebook post, watched a YouTube video, or shared an Insta post carelessly. But, do you know behind all these posts, there is a lot of human effort involved.
The content appeared on your feed because of the planning and efforts of social media experts like a social media executive who handles social media profiles of businesses and manages their updates. A social media executive has multiple skills and performs numerous activities on social channels to help a business meet its goals and increase revenue.
In this article, we have highlighted all the important aspects of this social media job position so you can decide whether it is the right career choice for you or not.
Who is a social media executive?
A social media executive plans, directs, and coordinates different social media activities for his company. He is normally responsible for creating strategies to achieve the company’s goals. He attends meetings, visits company’s offices, and meets influencers and other professionals to ensure that the company’s social media presence improves and overall revenue increases.
Ha has access to all social media business profiles of the company and is accountable for social media updates. He performs multiple tasks and also keeps an eye on the performance of other team members.
Roles and responsibilities of a social media executive
If you read social media executive job descriptions on the internet, you will come to know their responsibilities or requirements section varies from company to company. It is because each company has its own objectives and goals. It needs someone who can work and perform different activities required to achieve those particular tasks.
Let’s see what the basic roles of a social media executive are in an organization.
Oversee social media profile management
A social media executive updates social accounts of the company on different sites such as Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, etc. He makes sure quality content is posted regularly. He improves customer engagement by responding to their messages and comments. He checks and analyses profile metrics to evaluate and improve its performance.
Improve brand awareness and promotion
If the social media executive is working for a startup, increasing brand awareness will be one of the most important goals. But, if he is working for a well-established company, he will focus more on retaining current clients and increasing brand promotion.
A social media executive will work for the improvement of the brand depending on its goals and position in the market.
Identify his potential customers
Each business targets a particular kind of audience depending on the services it is offering.
Let’s say you are working for a book publishing company; here, your target audience will be book writers or probably book readers (who may develop an interest in writing a book some time in their lives).
Or, let’s say you work for a ladies’ shoe brand; your target audience will be women of a particular demographic area. When designing this brand’s campaign, you cannot set ‘men’ as your target audience. As doing so will certainly not produce the results you want.
A social media executive knows that before producing content, he first needs to find his target audience, so that he can create content accordingly. Thus, before designing content, he first identifies his target audience.
Develop unique content and optimize it
Do you know more than 720,000 hours of videos and 3.2 billion images are shared on the internet every day? That’s a huge number. How do you make sure that your target audience sees your content? You optimize your content and make sure it is unique, catches your audience’s eye, and adds value to their lives.
This is what a social media executive does every day. He works with a team of content creators and strategists. He goes through each post before it is published on the company’s profile.
Set social media goals and create a plan to achieve them
Setting goals is important if you want to successfully run your social media platforms. They keep you motivated and focused. They help all team members work towards achieving a mutual target.
A social media executive sets focused social media goals that he fulfills to achieve business objectives. He creates marketing and content strategies that align well with his goals. He not only creates goals but also tracks their progress.
Use word-of-mouth marketing techniques
Influencer marketing or word-of-mouth marketing has become a significant part of the marketing strategies of many online businesses. 80% of marketers believe that influencer marketing is beneficial. Any business that wishes to improve its exposure, gain customer trust, and boost sales can certainly benefit from this form of marketing.
Social media executives establish long-term relationships with niche influencers who promote their products among their followers. They show people how to use a particular product and get the most out of it.
Plan and execute marketing strategies to drive traffic
Successful social media executives always plan their marketing strategies to increase the success rate. Studies indicate that marketers who plan their marketing strategies are 3 times more likely to get results.
Therefore, executives design strategies to boost their social platform or website traffic. They improve their strategies if they fail to generate anticipated results.
Change content strategies according to social media trends
Social media trends change continuously. Using the same content while ignoring new trends and social media evolution can badly affect your social media performance. A competitive social media executive establishes flexible strategies that he adjusts according to the change in social media trends.
Produce performance reports
A social media strategist is also responsible for generating performance reports. They tell how well an online business is performing. Businesses use it to improve their day-to-day operations and manage main objectives.
A good performance report is understandable, verifiable, comparable, and timely.
Hire the right social media team member
A business needs different employees, each for a particular task. When a vacancy opens and potential candidates apply for the vacancy, the social media executive conducts interviews and selects the most suitable candidate.
Not only that, but he also trains him so that he can easily handle day-to-day tasks, adjust to the new place, and collaborate with other team members.
Social media executive skills
A social media executive has a combination of the following skills.
Extensive knowledge of social media sites
Knowledge and understanding of different social media channels are very important to becoming a successful social media executive. You should know which channel is the most suitable for your specific business niche. You should also be aware of the benefits and uses of all the tools that each social platform offers.
Content creation
Content is king. It has more power than you may imagine. It can make or break the reputation or credibility of an online business.
That is why you should know how to write informative, authentic, quality content that people can recognize and understand easily. The content can be in any form like GIF, animation, image, video, live stream, promotion, and whatnot. You should know the impact and value of each form of content.
Advertising
Social media is used as an advertising medium by businesses. Companies run paid campaigns for diverse purposes such as increasing the number of page likes, promoting the launch of a new product, increasing leads, promoting an end-season sale, etc.
As a social media executive, you should have extensive knowledge of creating an effective ad and running it successfully.
Knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO)
Creating quality content is one thing, and optimizing it is another. No matter how good your content is, it might not be of any help if it is not optimized properly.
You should know basic SEO techniques like internal linking, on-page SEO, etc., so that you can boost your website and social platform’s ranking on the internet.
Strong communication skills
A social media strategist has to communicate with all sorts of people. He establishes professional relationships with industry leaders and influencers. He improves customer engagement through communication. He shares his views, ideas, and suggestions with team members. He also presents a monthly performance report to stakeholders.
You can perform all the tasks mentioned above successfully if you are good at verbal and written communication. Therefore, communication skills are a must-have if you want to be a social media executive.
Customer service skills
More than 90% of Americans decide whether to choose a company or not based on its customer services. Having exceptional customer service is the key to establishing a strong relationship with your current customers and converting your potential customers into loyal clients.
You should learn which tools are effective in improving customer services and how you can use those tools to take your customer services to the next level.
Creativity
Creativity is an important characteristic of a social media executive. It opens doors to new opportunities for executive and inspires him to create better marketing strategies and content. As a social media executive, you need to have a creative mind to come up with new content ideas every day.
Public relations skills
Public relations skills allow a social media executive to communicate with a variety of people every day, research new social media trends through public opinion, and establish a lasting relationship with customers.
Team management
Many employees work under a social media executive. Therefore, it is his responsibility to keep an eye on their day-to-day activities, performances, and results. He needs to handle and manage a team while fostering a healthy work environment. He should use team management skills to listen to his team members attentively and give an honest response.
Social media executive salary
You can expect the average annual salary of a social media executive to be around $77,208 per year. It can be as low as $46,000 for beginners and as high as $135,000 or more for seniors. The average pay consists of base pay and additional pay (tips, commissions, and bonuses). The average base pay of a social media executive in the US is $53,945 per year, and the additional pay is $23,264 per year.
Social media executive interview questions and answers
Q. Can social media marketing help a business grow?
There is no denying that social media marketing is replacing traditional marketing with time. It can be harmful to a business not to use social media channels to increase brand awareness and attract customers. In the answer, give a few examples of the businesses that have increased their sales by adding social media marketing to their overall marketing plan.
Q. How do you measure the success of social media marketing?
You can tell that you study different metrics like the number of leads, customers, sales, audience growth rate, etc., to determine how successful your social media marketing campaign was. Name a few tools that you use for analyzing performance.
FAQs
What makes a good social media executive?
A good social media executive is always ready to change his marketing strategies according to the changing trends. He creates a list of achievable goals before planning marketing strategies. He encourages creativity and experimentation.
Is it worth it to be a social media executive?
Many businesses around the world are now using social media platforms to widen their audience. They hire social media experts to handle their social media channels, increasing the demand for social media executives. Choosing a career that is in high demand will undoubtedly open many doors of opportunity for you. Therefore, it is certainly worth it to be a social media strategist.
Summary
Social media executives wear many hats. They can perform multiple tasks based on the requirements and needs of a project. They can be content writers, graphic designers, customer service providers, and marketing experts when a company wants them to be.
A social media executive is responsible for improving the financial state of a business by helping it grow its following and leads on multiple social media channels. He creates marketing strategies, tracks their performance, analyzes their results, and brings changes to them according to the changing needs.