More than half of the global population (52.1%) uses social media or has used social media sometime in their lives. The number is expected to increase to 56.7% in 2025.
These increasing numbers show that social media channels have created innumerable opportunities for local and international businesses to reach potential customers and create strong relationships with them.
To run a business successfully, today a business needs social media specialists who understand social media platforms better and have the potential of generating better results in less time.
This article explains who social media specialists are and what their roles and responsibilities are.
What is a social media specialist?
As the name indicates, a social media specialist is an expert in using different social media channels for business purposes. He creates and manages content on social media channels to increase the visibility of an organization and build its audience. He can work on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, and any other social media channel that exists.
A successful social media specialist has command over many skills. He is an expert in online research and can run a competitive analysis to see the difference between his own content and his competitor’s content. This analysis helps him transfor his content to stay a step ahead of his competitors.
Social media specialist roles and responsibilities
A social media specialist plays multiple roles. But, your responsibilities as a social media specialist highly depend on the organization you work for. Some may ask you to create content and handle their statistics, while others may also ask you to create a social media strategy, maintain marketing stats, and do much more.
Regardless of the organization you work for, here are the roles and responsibilities a social media specialist is expected to play.
Set realistic goals
The primary goal of a social media specialist is to engage his target audience and connect with loyal clients to grow a substantial following.
He first understands the social media marketing needs of the company. Then, he sets S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) social media goals that align well with the company’s goals.
These goals focus on increasing brand awareness, generating new leads, and growing revenue using effective content.
Explore different social media platforms
There are many similarities between different social media channels, yet they are different from each other in multiple ways. A social media specialist identifies those differences and similarities to ensure each channel is used in the best possible way.
Let’s understand it with an example.
Posts having videos generate the most engagement on Facebook (more than 13.9%), while images work better than videos on Twitter (users tweet images 361% times more than they tweet videos). So, a competitive social media specialist will understand the difference in the audiences’ preferences on both platforms and generate content accordingly.
Share content across different platforms
Managing multiple social media accounts and sharing consistent content on them can be difficult, but it has become a necessity for businesses. Therefore, a social media specialist shares engaging content on different social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. It helps him talk to different audiences and increase business reach.
Execute social media marketing strategy
He creates social media content and sometimes marketing strategies to help the business achieve its social media goals.
In the strategy, he plans what he wants to do, like what kind of content will be produced, which designs will be preferred, how many monthly campaigns he will run, etc. Then, he writes the steps he needs to take to execute the strategy.
Handle social media content calendar
A social media content calendar is in the form of a spreadsheet that social media specialists use to schedule posts. It helps them plan their content, keep track of deadlines, and manage content throughout the month.
A social media specialist can create the social media content calendar. It can be in the form of a Google calendar, a spreadsheet, or any other management tool.
Establish a professional relationship with influencers
Influencer marketing has become a powerful approach businesses use to grow. Around 93% of marketers say they have used influencers to increase their reach.
A social media specialist knows the true value of this marketing form. Therefore, he connects with the niche influencers and establishes professional relationships to ensure he can use their services when the need arises.
Analyze campaign results
Social media specialists run marketing campaigns to get sales, attract new customers, and increase profit. In addition, they also measure the campaign’s success rate to check if the campaign is generating the results they want or is simply wasting their money.
Measuring the number of sales and the amount of profit is not enough. A social media specialist analyzes many other metrics, including customer lifetime value, bounce rate, traffic by source, conversion rate, conversion by acquisition, etc.
If he finds out that the campaign is using more money than it is generating, he will make the necessary amendments to the strategy to improve the campaign’s performance.
Social media specialist skills
The social media specialist position is multi-faceted in nature. Therefore, a media specialist needs a mixture of different skills to succeed.
Let’s take a look at the skills that a social media specialist needs to have.
- An average person uses around 7 different social media channels per month. Therefore, a social media specialist must have an understanding of multiple social media channels.
- Ability to design and run social media campaigns that align with the organization’s goals
- Exceptional written communication skills to professionally communicate with customers and write compelling posts
- Proficiency in analyzing campaign results and presenting them to other professionals and stakeholders
- Some knowledge of video and photo editing
- Interest in new social media tools, techniques, and trends
- Ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and keep things organized
- Shows collaborative and supportive behavior
- Understanding of social media managing and publishing tools
Social media specialist requirements
Requirements for a social media position vary from company to company. Some may want the specialist to have more than five years of experience, while others may need entry-level social media specialists.
Majority of the companies mention the following requirements in special media specialist job descriptions.
- A bachelor’s degree in any related field, such as journalism, digital marketing, creative writing, or mass communication.
- At least 3 years of experience in content writing, social media channel management, strategy creation, and campaign planning.
- Ability to professionally communicate with customers, influencers, etc.
- Experience using different management tools
- Time management skills
Should you become a social media specialist?
Careers related to social media, such as social media specialist, are in high demand, and their demand is expected to increase with time due to the prevalence of social media. If you are planning to start a career related to social media, choosing social media specialist as the career might be a good decision if you have the required skills.
A step-by-step guide to becoming a social media specialist
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Showcase your skills with social media
For a social media specialist, the best place to showcase his social media skills is the social media itself. Top social media specialists create their business profiles on popular social media channels. They run successful campaigns to increase their number of followers; they create engaging content and post it consistently; they keep an eye on metrics and improve them over time.
So, create your social media profiles, write perfect bios, and share content regularly to attract clients.
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Understand the fundamentals of social media marketing
A social media specialist plays several roles in an organization. Your employer can ask you to perform different tasks related to social media. Therefore, it is best to be prepared beforehand and learn social media marketing fundamentals.
As a social media specialist, you should have the knowledge of the following skills:
- SEO
- Influencer marketing
- Email marketing
- Paid advertising
- Customer service
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Use different forms of content
There is a wide variety of content you can use on social media to increase engagement and generate leads. Some examples of these forms include:
- Videos
- Images
- Gifs
- Articles
- Video stories
- Electronic books
- Infographics
- Contests
- Testimonials
A social media specialist should know when and where to use a particular form of content and get the most out of it. Conduct thorough research on each content type and learn their uses and benefits.
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Learn how to plan and run social media campaigns
As a social media specialist, you may have to promote products, increase conversion rate, generate leads, and increase followers through campaigns. Therefore, it is necessary to learn how campaigns are planned and executed.
Not only that, but you should also know how to analyze the results of a campaign. It will help you identify if you are using the right techniques and targeting the right audience or if there is any need to make amendments.
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Be aware of the new social media tools, features, and trends
Social media channels keep changing with time. It is mainly because their owners want to make them more valuable to brands and other users.
New social media tools and features are being introduced every other month, like the new ‘Limit’ feature of Instagram that has recently been released to allow people to hide abusive DMs and comments.
These features provide new opportunities for brands to boost their revenue by increasing the effectiveness of social media platforms. Therefore, you should keep an eye on new trends, features, and tools and adapt your strategies accordingly.
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Test your social media ideas
A social media strategist should never hesitate to test new ideas. You should try different things on your social media channels to evaluate their effects. It will help you develop your creativity, learn something new every day, and gradually improve your performance.
Social media specialist salary
You might be a suitable candidate for the social media specialist job if you have good social media marketing skills and excellent communication skills. There are many benefits of working as a social media specialist, and one of these benefits is the above-average pay.
The estimated salary of a social media specialist in the United States is $61,202 per year, with an average base salary of $43,570/year and average additional pay of $17,632/year. You can create your own social media marketing agency to earn more and get direct with multiple clients.
Social media manager vs. social media specialist
The responsibilities of social media specialists and social media managers often overlap. Despite the similarities, social media specialists and managers are different job positions and have some different roles.
The main difference is that a social media manager primarily focuses on managing multiple social media channels while a social media specialist focuses more on content creation, content calendar management, and copywriting.
Social media specialists interview questions and answers
Q. What are the benefits of social media for businesses?
This question is asked to see if you have the knowledge and potential to work on social media to improve the revenue of a business. In the answer, you should tell them how each social media platform can help a business increase sales, build customer loyalty, expand its reach, and do much more.
Q. How to create a social media calendar?
Every person has his/her own style of creating a social media calendar. But, still, the basic steps are almost the same. You can tell the interviewee your own method of creating a calendar. Don’t forget to name the tools you use to create a social media calendar.
Takeaway
Social media specialists are experts in different social media channels. They help businesses gain more loyal customers and improve their relationship with existing customers.
From writing posts, creating content strategies, and planning campaigns to evaluating analytics, improving SEO and doing much more, a social media specialist can help a business expand in multiple ways.
If you dream of becoming a successful social media specialist one day, start your journey by creating your professional social media profiles and making them successful. Potential clients will understand your value simply by visiting your professional profiles.