How to Be a Good Social Media Manager

What job has dozens of posts to approve, loads of content to create, all while trying to keep everyone happy? Social media managing, that’s what.

For the past month, I’ve dipped my toes into being a social media and marketing manager for the Haikhuu Trading Community. The company’s goal is to help investors and traders with a community where we provide resources for everyone to have more success in the stock market. It’s been an incredible journey learning the ropes of a company and using social media as from a business perspective versus a personal one.

According to Digital Marketing Institute, social media managers create and maintain brand promotions, company information, and marketing campaigns for their company across several different social media networks. Social media manager positions typically require a bachelor’s degree in marketing, public relations, or similar.

If you’re curious about what it’s like to run a company’s social media, then you clicked on the right article. I’m going to be going over ways to deal with the stress of creating content and keeping everyone in the communities happy.

You Must Love The Company

Through the forefront of social media managing, you should at least enjoy the service your company offers. Thankfully, I’m very well-versed and intrigued by stock trading and investing, so the work I do lines up with my values. When you love the company, you’re more likely to use the services it offers, research the company, and be a perfect spokesperson to help spread awareness of the work it does.

Loving the company I work for makes me feel like I’m contributing to the overall mission whether that be boosting sales, gaining new clients, and growing as a creative entrepreneur. Everything I learned since using Myspace as a kid is finally paying off and that feels awesome. Even on the days I don’t feel like checking the Facebook groups, posting on Instagram, or updating the Twitter accounts, I keep at it.

“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” — Steve Jobs

Interactions are Everything

Social media is the number one way to communicate and interact with your clientele and undiscovered clientele, so I take it very seriously. The people willing to spend even one dollar within your company deserve the best upfront care and attention to make them feel loved and welcome. When everyone feels like a team, especially in community-based service, then everyone wins. When your voice is heard, you want to put your two cents in and chime in on the conversation.

When I see one of my Facebook discussion posts get two to three hundred likes and comments, I feel like a movie director at the premiere of his badass movie. Creating posts that bring people together is addicting, and I get to call it part of my job. That’s awesome! Discussion and inspirational posts are at the core of my values in social media managing because if people aren’t talking, then there’s nothing amazing that can blossom.

“Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” — Joe Chernov

You Must Check Your Phone Often

Checking your phone may not seem like too bad of a thing. After all, phone addiction is one of the most common habits throughout the entire world. So since I naturally use my phone often, I would love working social media, wouldn’t I? The answer is sometimes. I enjoy social media managing only sometimes because of these pros and cons:

Pros:

I enjoy the dopamine rush of approving posts or getting likes on the content that I created.

It’s nice to see people within the community interacting because I set them up for success.

Knowing that I’m contributing to the growth of the business feels incredible.

Cons:

It gets overwhelming, and you feel like there’s always something you need to be doing.

You deal with a lot of spammers and scammers who give you, the admin or social media manager a hard time keeping distractions out.

You’re not going to please everybody, and there will always be at least one person who is not happy about what you say or how you say it.

Checking my phone for work is something I didn’t imagine in a million years, but to get paid for it and being able to “work” anytime my boss shoots me a text feels unreal. Technology is a big part of social media management and I love being on my phone so it’s a win-win!

By no means do I take the opportunity, I have to work remotely on my computer and phone. Sometimes though, it can get tough to be in multiple places at once while still maintaining headspace for creative content.

Make Scheduling Posts a Habit

As a social media manager, I can’t stress to you enough about the importance of scheduling posts. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so many more platforms allow you to schedule a post multiple days and even months down the line. I did four months of work in one day by just grinding it out and getting those posts ready to go.

Thanks to your proactive behavior, you’ll be rewarded with time, an essential resource for every human being who has ever lived. When your posts are automated, you can shift your attention to creating more new quality content that will help you stand out as a company and impact people in a way they weren’t expecting.

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier

You Have to Think Different

Similar to Apple’s tagline, “Think Different,” a social media manager must think outside the box from everyone else. There are going to be lots of companies that advertise their products or service solely on boosting sales. From my perspective, I want to find life-long clients who stick around and become part of a family rather than by a user of the goods we offer.

When you are creating content that appeals to current and discoverable clientele, it’s incredibly crucial to see if there’s any way that you can do things differently.

“Master the topic, the message, and the delivery.”

— Steve Jobs, Co-Founder, Apple

Many people have made posts using quotes from previous testimonials satisfied customers leave after using a product or service. But did you consider asking for permission to share a screenshot conversation to use in a social media post? By having a fresh perspective, you offer a much more raw, real-deal example conveying to your audience that you are credible, people love you, and you are unique.

It’s incredibly satisfying to see your actions as a social media manager directly impact your company’s sales and fulfill your clientele. When one of my ideas flops, I don’t dwell on it. Instead, I look at what I could do differently and this opens up so many more doors to push the envelope in future content. Instead of doing what everyone else is doing, take an extra minute to see what you could do that would stand out and captivate someone’s attention. Your due diligence will go a very long way.

The Social Media Managing Endgame

When your focus is on social media managing versus sales, there’s a drastic difference. In sales, your main goal is to sell your product and service. End of story, you make the sale, or you don’t, simple as that. But when it comes to social media managing, your focus then shifts to keeping your clients happy and discovering new people who may be interested in what you offer.

In the social media work I do, I love bringing people together, motivating them, and giving them value that improves their lives, and to do all of that by clicking some buttons is pretty surreal.

At the end of the day, social media is never going to die out. People’s attention has shifted from Myspace to Facebook to Snapchat to Instagram and now Tik Tok. It’s an always-evolving shift in where the attention is, and as long as you do your due diligence, you’ll be able to make a giant impact in the world simply by clicking the right buttons. I will leave you with a quote one of my favorite marketing directors, Michelle Stinson-Ross, said best.

“To continue winning the internet marketing game, your content has to be more than just brilliant, it has to give the people consuming that content the ability to become a better version of themselves.”