Firstly, what is a social media manager?
There are various definitions of a social media manager and what they do, but I’ve found this from the Digital Marketing Institute, which sums it up very nicely.
“Typically, a Social Media Manager is the person in an organization who is trusted with monitoring, executing, filtering, and measuring the social media presence of a product, brand, corporation or even individual.
A social media manager is often called the ‘voice of the company’.” The role may also be referred to as ‘Community Manager’ (although this title has become slightly outdated) or ‘Digital and Social Media Manager’.”
What are the daily tasks of a social media manager?
Despite the title, social media managers do not just sit scrolling through social platforms all day! They are typically multi-skilled, organised individuals who cover a variety of aspects from community engagement, to post creation and advert management.
Interested in what a social media manager does? Read on!
1. Notification review
One of the first things I do each day is check notifications for each social media channel. Whilst I don’t do this every day, you may find that notifications can get a bit crazy with reactions to your posts, messages, mentions and so on.
A good lil’ bit of admin sets you up for the day!
2. Engagement
What usually follows this is the responses to messages, comments, and mentions – it’s good to be reactive in some cases, as you want your followers to feel included and that their input matters.
Then, I will go through the various social feeds of companies we follow.
I’ll like, comment, retweet and share any posts or stories that are relevant or supportive of the development of that brand’s community.
3. Post development
This is the stage I come to either every week, or every couple of weeks, depending on the content plan for the brand I am working with.
Let’s break this down to clarify…
If a brand is very reactive and sells lots of products, then my usual go-to strategy is to plan the content one week in advance before it is scheduled, to keep the content fresh and relevant to the audience.
If a brand is not as reactive, for example, they sell services, then my go-to strategy is to bulk content create four weeks in advance before it is scheduled.
4. Content production
Once I have the ideas formed, usually with some input from our clients, I will go ahead and create the content. Sometimes, clients will ask me to use assets they already have, and I may jazz them up in Canva or another content creation tool, to ensure the personality of the brand comes across.
In some cases, we have ‘content days’, where we plan and film a bunch of short-form videos (videos shorter than 1 minute) with the client or their teams. These videos provide insightful knowledge whilst setting the client apart from their competitors.
5. Tweaks and scheduling
Once we have our content ready, I’ll make some adjustments to sizes and timings, as this is important for uploading to each platform.
It’s important to make time for this process as multiple users receive content in different forms (mostly on mobile), so your users and potential customers can see exactly what you’re trying to say.
I’ve included a link which shows the different sizes needed for images and videos when uploading to each social media channel.
6. Analysis
I will spend time making sure I monitor post performance to help understand which posts do well, and what can be done better the next time content is created.
A useful tip I’ve picked up is the dates and times you post.
As time goes on, you’ll find what times are best to publish your content based on the level of engagement or traffic to your website –
all major social media platforms have in-app analytics which are easy to interpret and review your data.
Some additional things social media managers get up to
Whilst this is only an insight into the daily life, there are many ever-changing variations that come with being a social media manager.
One of the most important elements is hashtags.
I’m constantly reviewing hashtags and updating the bank of hashtags for each client we manage. I try and stick to the rule of ‘3-5’: use no less than 3 hashtags and no more than 5 hashtags per post.
Another element I haven’t quite covered is social media advertising, which is usually part of the social media manager’s role.
To give you an overview, this will include LOTS of research into the market and competitors, as well as audience profiling, content creation and landing page designs – told you there was a lot in there!
For now, I think that’s covered all that I get up to daily!
