What Is A Social Media Manager, It’s Work And How Much Do They Earn?

Do you know what a Social Media Manager is and what its main functions are?

Social networks play a very important role for any type of business, which is why the work of the Social Media Manager has become a highly demanded and well-paid profession today.

Brands need to develop a Digital Marketing strategy when selling their services or products online, and although we believe that it is something simple, it requires good planning to achieve excellent results.

If you want to know more about the tasks performed by this professional, you have come to the right place. Let’s start!

What is a Social Media Manager?

The Social Media Manager is the person in charge of carrying out and supervising the Marketing strategy in social networks of a company, using the digital tools at their disposal, such as blogs, podcasts or webinars, hence the SMM must know all of them and know what contributes to a corporate campaign.

This professional is also involved in supervising the Community Manager on issues related to the process of generating, curating, editing, publishing and managing content on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube or, in general, any of the main social networks where you have a presence.

In addition to being part of the voice of the Brand, product or service, this will be the person who analyzes the results of the campaigns by tracking participation metrics, such as likes, clicks, interactions and overall engagement .

Above all, the Social Media Manager must be an individual:

• Analytical
• Creative
• motivated
• With experience
• Passion for your work

What functions does a Social Media Manager have?

The main tasks that are entrusted to a specialist in managing the main Social Media trends in favor of the company for which they work (either employed or collaborating as a Freelance) are:

» Plan strategy in Social Networks of a brand

She is in charge of developing a publication strategy for a company’s Social Networks, with the aim of boosting audience engagement.

The idea is to turn the company’s fans into customers and retain them in the future.

» Campaign performance analysis

Another challenge social media managers face is understanding how to use metrics effectively and how to optimize campaigns based on those metrics.

The term “Analytics” is used quite broadly here, referring to both social media metrics (eg likes, comments, shares, etc.) and more business metrics (eg traffic, leads, conversions, revenue, etc.).

An excellent Social Media Manager is capable of understanding both types of metrics.

But not only that, but it will relate them to each other to provide an overview of the performance of the company’s social networks in relation to business objectives.

» Communication with people

Day-to-day responsibilities include making sure the company voice is always consistent, and working with the CM to create and nurture a community across all social platforms.

» You must keep abreast of major trends

It can be a daily challenge, because it requires you to be aware of the trends on your channels (and in your industry) at all times.

This implies that a Social Media Manager is proactive, since as you well know, new techniques and strategies are emerging almost every day to be implemented in each one of them.

A clear example is that last year around this time no one was still talking about Tik Tok. And now he is on everyone’s lips!

» Content writing (Copywriting)

Copywriting is a fundamental skill for marketing in social networks (and probably for all areas of this sector) .

In networks you must know how to write very well to transmit and reach a larger audience. And all of this, without great persuasive writing skills, can be quite difficult.

» Ease of speaking in public

With features and apps like Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and Periscope, streaming video is becoming increasingly important on social platforms.

Marketers have noticed an increase in its usability due to the fact that it generates greater reach and engagement.

From an engagement perspective, live content also provides the opportunity for high audience engagement and interactions.

Therefore, Social Media Managers must be confident enough to speak in public, answer unexpected messages or questions about products or the service in question, and have conversation skills and empathy.

» Behavioral psychology

With data and analytics, this professional will know what type of social media posts work well for a type of business.

Behavioral psychology tells you why, for example, people are attracted to certain posts, or why people share some and not others.

You will also be able to spot trends and try to replicate past successes and understand the underlying causes of those trends to try to create future successes.

You certainly don’t need a degree or a high level of experience in psychology to be a good Social Media Manager.

But the interest in learning and understanding it on some level is an important skill.

» Budget control

As a social media manager, you may be assigned a budget to work on the brand’s Facebook Ads campaigns and advertising in order to optimize it as well as possible.

In addition to paid advertising, you may also need to invest in social media management tools, layouts, images, or paid enhancement courses.

How much does a Social Media Manager earn approximately?

To find out how much money this professional earns, you have to take into account the functions he performs and the size and budget of the company that hires him.

A Social Media Manager in the United States charges between 40,000 and 120,000 dollars a year. But, according to different studies, here in Spain that salary can be: between 25,000 and 50,000 euros gross per year.

For example, this is indicated by the postcard: www.glassdoor.es, as you can see in the image:

Differences between a Social Media Manager and a Community Manager

A Social Media Manager is often confused with the Community Manager. I even bet you thought they were both doing the same thing, right?

The Social Media Manager acts by promoting the Brand’s products from the strategic field; while the Community Manager comes to be the one who executes all these actions in practice.

All this to encourage audience participation and provide mutual support in favor of the Brand itself.

In medium-sized or small companies and businesses, both roles are usually merged into the same person , who is in charge of the company’s entire social media marketing strategy.

Surveys are an important part of a CM’s role, because they help convey what the brand is looking for, as well as ways to improve the user experience .

Plus, catching problems early helps reduce customer frustration later.

The duties of a Community Manager are broader than those of the Social Media Manager , and include raising awareness or engagement.

To summarize, the responsibilities of a CM include:

• Develop a community for users of the product or service.
• Increase public participation through debates
• Connect new users with resources to help them get involved in the community
• Respond to questions that arise and help troubleshoot
• Find ways to improve the user experience by collecting feedback from the brand’s community of followers.

The workflow of a CM

An example of the day to day of a CM:

• 40% Of the time having conversations with the defenders of the Brand and the people of the communities of followers of his brand.
• 25% create content and design strategies to increase the community of followers and connect with new people.
• 20% creating visibility and credibility, attending Twitter chats or Online events.
• 10% analyzing the efforts that generate more traffic and engagement together with the SMM.
• 5% creating relationships with people from different teams in the company.

Conclusion

In short, knowing what a Social Media Manager is and the functions it performs for a brand will allow you to assess whether it is indeed the profession you really want to dedicate yourself to.

He is in charge of defining the objectives that the brand intends to achieve and creating the marketing strategy in social networks.

Measure all marketing actions and work towards the objectives that we mentioned before.