How to Become A Social Media Expert?

Social Media; it came, it saw and it conquered! There can be no better way to address the drastic, monumental, and influential role that social media today has on our lives and businesses. The interactive technologies that have facilitated the sharing of content and knowledge across communities then set out to redesign our businesses and services keeping them customer-centric while reaping the fruit of mass-scale reach and impact. In the wake of this popularity, Social Media Expert seems to be a lucrative career if the prospect of revolutionizing and harnessing these social media platforms appeals to you.

The magnanimous usage of these user-friendly social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, WeChat, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Quora, YouTube, Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, Pinterest, and Snapchat, etc. have brought in a new and entirely promising way of disseminating and gaining information, thus effectively making them ideal for promoting products, businesses, and services.

Understanding social media

Content creation and knowledge sharing by users via an interactive platform is the basic premise on which social media sites exist. As users engage with these electronic services, they create highly interactive platforms in which individuals, communities, and organizations can share, co-create, debate, discuss, participate, analyze, and modify user-generated or self-curated content that has been posted online for consumption.

Additionally, social media are used to list and log memories; learn about and explore things; advertise oneself; and form friendships by using blogs, podcasts, videos, and gaming sites. This is insightful for sure. Currently, there are around 3.6 billion social media users worldwide, while there were 3.4 billion users in 2019.

This clearly asserts the popular concept that the world is shrinking, the world has come closer, bringing people together.  There are 13 types of social media that have been catching the users’ interest, viz Blogs, Collaborative project management, Enterprise social networking, Business networks, Forums, Microblogs, Photo sharing, Products/Services review, Social bookmarking, Social gaming, Social networks, Video sharing and finally Virtual worlds.

A career in social media would largely mean taking up a position in the social media marketing sphere, the buzz that has generated all the commotion in the past few years and has been garnering extensive popularity. It would not be farfetched to liken this with any disruptive technology, as this has been a game-changer when it came to marketing and promotion.

One needs to understand the customer thought process (their point of view) when they make buying decisions, social media experts need to work on channels where targeted customers (intended users) are present. The lookout always must be ways to attract, engage and retain these customers, they must respond to a CTA.

Thus, we can say that social media simply put is bridging the gap between the customers and products/ services/ businesses. It is seen filling up the gaps that traditional marketing channels failed to even address or identify. Realistically put, social media is a micro-industry that has been tasked with digital marketing operations and initiatives.

It has been exciting to understand that 90% of the big brands are relying on and using social media as a promotion and growth strategy. This will see a scaling of a great proportion, making it an unmissable tool while tackling competition. However, 50% of small businesses are not using social media for their business promotion.

Some Key Social Media Statistics:

• Social Media ensures a 100% lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing
• 66% of marketers that spend at least 6 hours per week using social media channels get more leads
• 70% of B2C get resources through Facebook

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Why use Social Media for your businesses/ products/ services

Fundamentally, the understanding of the benefits of using social media marketing for your business/product/service will drill down the need for experts in this field. You are making Social media work for you, to boost your sales, raise the popularity of your brand/product/service.’

• Social media has been deep-rooted and embedded in marketing strategy now for quite some time
• It has changed the competitive landscape and scaled up competition
• It helps generate better leads
• It has helped nurture and build the trust of customers and end-users
• A very viable, inclusive, and effective platform for knowledge sharing
• It helps in the creation of a positive image of the brand/service/product
• Any promotion tactic can be made creative and will be bound to create a buzz for sure
• Ensures transparency in operations
• It has provided a much-needed facelift to the traditional broadcasting methods
• Increase in business visibility
• Increase in lead-pipelines
• Aids in boosting wins and promises bigger deals
• Builds long-lasting customer relationship
• Helps in tracking your marketing strategy effectively
• Everything boils down to ‘Customer is the King’ and thus everything from the marketing strategy, sales pitch, promotions, and information bytes can be tailored for the intended customers
• It picks up on the buying patterns, spending style, and preferences of the customers
• Helps your stay ahead in the competition as all the data and insights are more relevant
• It enables entrepreneurs to understand how their business is perceived by consumers
• It has become a business tool, as opposed to what they originally intended to do, for socialization
• It gives an insight into how competitive brands are performing
• It helps understand the customer’s perception about competitor brands, thus providing back-handed feedback about your own brand’s placement and acceptance
• It helps the future customer better
• It’s global, the world at your fingertips, proverbially the world and the marketplace is your oyster
• Official company websites are restrictive. Social media tools make them lighten up and allow social engagement.
• Such posts can motivate, inspire, entertain, educate, take up a social cause, and any such non-business purposes
• Social responsibilities of organizations and their efforts of giving back to society can be effectively met using social media
• It is economical
• All brands and businesses have an equal chance of promotion of their product/service at much cheaper rates
• This makes for an open market, where consumers have all the options and alternatives readily available, the consumers are in a position to make an educated choice.
• Social media adds a new dimension
• Aids in mouth-of-word publicity
• Gives first-hand customer feedback, as reach is direct
• Instils and scales brand loyalty
• Improves user engagement
• It is a driving force of growth
• One can use it as a platform to advise, recommend, and interact
• One can bank on their customers to generate interest about product/service/brand in new users.
• A customer service strategy is also improved
• Digital opportunities create value

However, one must understand that like any technological advancement, this isn’t all a bed of roses. Social media comes with an almost constant fear of backlash. Any error or a social media mistake is visible, highlighted faster, and can become viral.

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How is Social Media Engagement helping Businesses?

Three aspects are primarily looked in into:

• Brand Building
• Omnichannel engagement ensures the highest quality customer experience
• Business Growth

A Social Media Expert, a specialist of this niche knows the ins and outs of this trade. He is an influencer, someone that is aware of basic marketing vis social media channels and has a broad understanding of social media tools and analytics. The person has sway on people, that needs to be channelized responsibly.

An expert that can take care of this is clearly an asset, that a company should invest in. Let’s delve deeper into how can you become one.

What is expected of a Social Media Expert?

Here are some of the prime responsibilities of an expert in this field:

• Responsible for creating and publishing useful, crisp, real, informative, relevant, consistent, and user-friendly content on all social media platforms. Communication skills are a given, a wordsmith with business acumen in a nutshell
• To grow an audience base, build brand awareness, ultimately boost sales
• Oversee site metrics, indicators of traffic, and site popularity
• Interact with readers, gauge the responses of consumers
• Creatively design the marketing campaign
• Understand the target audience for each social channel and create persuasive content that definitely hits home and resonates with the intended audience. It must cater to the typical style of interactions that are channel-specific
• Community management
• Customer service
• Copywriting data
• Analysis of the social media content, campaign, promotion that has been put out and keeping up with the trend to make it more relevant and customer-centric. This is an ongoing, real-time process. It is necessary to add a personal touch when responding to posts to build an emotional connect
• Thus, there is an inherent need to be agile and adaptable.

Planning of a brand’s social media strategy consists of devising a plan that suits the company’s all-embracing goals, strategizing tactics, generally exploring, optimizing, and testing different media channels. It should include:

• Strategizing
• Engaging
• Creativity
• Scheduling
• Listening
• Measuring
• Experimenting

These are the pillars that build your Social Media strategy, the onus of which will be on the expert. He/She needs to work towards the ultimate goal of on-site traffic or registration while planning the strategy and then get feedback.

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Skillset needed to become a social media expert

As an expert, a strong social media presence, with followers to boast of will help you garner similar responses while you promote and plan the strategy for a brand/business/product/service. Roping in the right players, subject matter experts, influencers, brand ambassadors will also serve your purpose well.

Thus, having a wide, broad network, with resources in different areas of interest, to tap in, is always an asset. You must be able to reach out to the right resource that will add that value to your content. In addition to that, one must possess:

• Excellent creativity
• Aesthetic eye
• Be adept and accomplished in Graphic designing, with knowledge of using basic tools like Canva or Buffer
• Eye for details
• Excellent communication skills, using words and infographics
• Intra-team communication is vital
• Research skill
• Compelling, concise, and clear writing skills that create the right impact. You are the voice of the brand and need to establish a connection with the end consumer by means of striking content
• Need to be data-driven
• Agility and flexibility are indisputably essential skills that one most possess
• Ability to plan, organize, strategize, make decisions, etc.
• Consistency and regularity in writing
• SEO knowledge, as it’s impactful
• SERP understanding
• Be good at data analysis
• The analysis should prompt you to initiate changes and affect the stakeholders
• Be a student of life, be willing to learn, upgrade and expand your knowledge
• Time management is an extremely essential skill as time gets easily spent on various social media platforms. One must have systems in place to organize tasks of creating tweets, Facebook, Instagram posts, images, Pinterest boards, etc. Scheduling live sessions, feedback, question and answer sessions also needs to be timely
• Right place, Right time is the mantra one must follow
• One must possess the sense of what’s trending, must stay abreast with the current happenings, as they can be incorporated into the content creation process
• An expert must be able to understand the pulse or the sentiment of a particular eye-grabbing trend

Job Opportunities/Scope

One can find employment in various MNCs, brand management firms, media houses, start-ups, digital marketing agencies, and advertising agencies. It is a well sought-out field worldwide, with ample opportunities at all levels. As a preliminary, preparatory step, keep a strong social media presence, maintain an impressive blog or a website to attract potential employers that will get a sample of your work.

Make an online portfolio, simply put, in order to market yourself. Being a social and outgoing person helps. You also must be able to figure out what may sit well with the target audience and what will ruffle their feathers.

According to PayScale, this job is well rated on all aspects including job satisfaction and can fetch an annual income in the range of 2 lacs-30 lacs per annum. The liberal and rampant use of Social Media platforms have given an impetus to this profession globally.

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Who can become a Social Media Expert?

Though there are no specific qualifications that can land you the dream job of a social media manager, a bachelor’s degree, preferably in the areas of mass media communications, public relations, business, journalism will set you apart. A post-graduation in Internet marketing may seal the deal for you. Work experience, hands-on experience are given more weightage here and hence an internship or training will do wonders for your resume.

Frequently Asked Questions 

• What area of business has social media influenced the most?

The maximum impact of social media platforms is observed on marketing strategy.

• How has communication changed with the advent of social media?

Social media helped establish direct communication with the consumer. Content is created to cater to consumer needs.

• What is the basic understanding needed to be a social media expert?

One must have an understanding of digital customer behavior, how to build social media marketing strategies, acknowledge the in-demand metrics of measurement to achieve optimum return on investment.

• What tool or a website can be used to create impactful social media posts?

Hemingway Editor is an app that helps you review your work, as it checks for lengthy complex sentences, grammatical errors, fluency, sentence structure, etc.

Conclusion

Social Media Expert or a Social Media Influencer is a multi-dimensional and versatile role, that mixes and matches too many skills and a penchant for staying in a spotlight socially. It is a profession that will allow you to be an influencer, someone that has a say on what people are choosing, you are like a friend, philosopher, and guide for them.  You can be an evangelist, with an ability to get your point across with a zeal like none other.

An expert can contribute to society just by his/her posts, which can shape, educate, mold thoughts and minds. With great authority comes great responsibility that cannot be taken lightly making the role something one cannot trifle with. The extensive and exhaustive usage of social media means that this method and channels of promotion have just gotten started. It will be interesting to observe what’s next!

A lucrative, rewarding yet competitive career, that will work the best for you, if you are a people person. It also is a tedious job, that needs you to be constantly online and engaged socially. The virtual world can tire a person out eventually. Nevertheless, if that is your calling, just let your social avatar take over!