A remote social media manager is a very lucrative career path that promises a favourable and satisfactory income. Most businesses and organizations are looking for people to help them grow their brand influence, create a loyal audience, and ultimately help them make a profit. With billions of people using one social media platform or the other every day, more companies and businesses have realized how they can use social media channels to reach millions of people worldwide. This has created a huge demand for social media managers and in turn, become an attractive career option for many because of its flexibility.
If you’re aspiring to be a social media manager and hoping to work from home, this article will cover all the aspects of what you need to get started.
What Does a Social Media Manager Do?
A remote social media manager is someone who manages a business, organization or company’s social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube and even Pinterest from anywhere in the world. Their job is to help a business grow and maintain engagement by posting content that resonates with them on various social media channels. They also analyze metrics and optimize social media content to help businesses target their audience. As a social manager, you can also work for clients, including influencers, celebrities, small-scale organizations, and various startups across different industries.
Responsibility For Social Media Manager
As a remote social media manager, you are expected to manage your clients’ social media platforms, interact with their audience through comments and direct messages, and manage the company’s overall social media online presence. But these responsibilities can be a little bit broader than that. Here are some of the responsibilities you can expect as a remote social media manager.
- Developing social media strategies and campaigns according to the client or company’s objectives
- Create social media calendars
- Work with a team of graphics and interactive designers to create visuals for social media post
- Analyze social media metrics to optimize social media campaigns
- Analyzing your competitors’ social media platforms to benchmark your results against them.
- Consistently maintaining the alignment of social media activities with brand guidelines.
- Keeping up with the latest social media trends, changing algorithms, and news in the industry.
Some Basic Social Media Manager Skills
As a remote social media manager, you should be able to write, edit videos, design, manage time and analyze. Therefore to be a successful social media manager, you must have the following skills.
1. Writing/copywriting
As a Social media manager, your ability to convince your audience to follow your brand will determine the success of your business. One effective way to do this is by writing. Your ability to convince people through text is very essential when it comes to social media marketing. Good copywriting will increase your sales and improves loyalty. Basic writing might not get you the desired result and may end up driving away your audience before they even see what your brand is about.
One way to improve your copywriting skills is by taking online courses or reading posts from competing businesses and other industries.
2. Graphic Designing Skills
In the field of digital marketing, visual content is some of the most engaging forms of content out there. Research shows that social media post with an image is likely to perform more than a post without them. This means you have to have a basic knowledge of graphic design. Some companies may have a graphic designer, however, to make your work fast, you need to have a basic idea of graphic design. There are tools out there like Canva that can help you with easy social media graphics. You can also watch some training on how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator on YouTube and read blog posts or articles on principles of design.
3. Video Editing
Video is the most engaging form of content in the world right now and they are more engaging than text and images. So as a social media manager, if you want to help your clients reach more audiences and create conversions, you need to know how to create and edit videos. Product videos, explainer videos, behind scenes videos are examples of videos expected from a social media manager. There are various tools that can help your video production to make it more industry standard. VN, Inshot, Canva, and Capcut are examples of video creation and editing tools you can use.
4. Analytical Skills
Measuring and analyzing metrics is one of your main job as a social media manager. This is because metrics are very important when it comes to business. You should be able to analyze social media metrics like reach, impressions, video views, page engagement, conversion rate, cost per click and many more. The data generated from the analysis of these metrics can help you to optimize your social media strategy and content to reach and convert more people into loyal customers. Most social media channels have their own analytical tools like Facebook analytics, Twitter analytics and many more. But you can still make use of third-party analytic tools like Sprout Social
5. Research Skill
As a social media manager, your research skill must be top-notch. You need to know what the latest trends are on social platforms, or which platforms have your target demographics. Research helps you stay on top of the constant changes in social media, current events, and pop culture. Furthermore, you need to be able to research trending topics and keywords in your industry. This will give you insight into what to post and write about on your social media platforms.
6. Content Marketing Skills
As a remote social media manager, you should be able to market your company’s product or services to its audiences on various social media platforms. Content marketing is the process of using various forms of content to entice your audience to buy your product or subscribe to your services. This encompasses copywriting, captions, videos, testimonials, reviews, videos, and other forms of content marketing strategies to help improve your business.
7. Project Management
As a social media manager, you might be working for two to three companies, which means you will have a lot of projects on your hand. Your ability to manage projects will keep your team or yourself afloat, especially if your schedule’s hectic. Effective project management means the content is delivered on time, remains on-brand, and is within the campaign budget and scope. There is various scheduling and project management tool that you can use. They include Buffer, Hootsuite and Slack which can help you schedule social media posts and schedule projects respectively.
How Much Does a Social Media Manager Get Paid?
According to Payscale, a social media manager earns around $16.19 per hour and $56,816 per year on average. Furthermore, an entry-level social media managers earn an average of $50,803 per year, while an experienced social media marketing manager with 10-19 years of experience earns around $72,109 per year.
How to Become a Social Media Manager
There is no direct social media management degree, however, there are multiple programs that can help you become a social media manager. We are going to explore how you can become a remote social media manager in this section.
1. Through Education
Although there is no direct degree program in the university on social media management, however, there are some related degrees that can get you on the right part. Most recruiters always encourage those that want to work for them to have a bachelor’s degree in the field of marketing, communications, digital marketing and business administration. Other related fields that you might consider might be Public Relations, Graphic Design, Web Design, and Journalism. A masters in the field of digital marketing or marketing and Business administration might be an added advantage.
2. Online Certification
As we established earlier, you don’t need a degree to become a social media manager, although it might be required by some employers that you have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in a related field. With that said, another way to get you on the right part by taking online courses and certifications. Employers value certificates because they show your achievement and expertise in a particular field. There are various platforms where you can learn these skills. They include Hubspot Academy, Coursera, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, Alyson and more. Most of these courses come with certification which you can showcase on Linkedin and curriculum vitae. Examples of some courses you can take include
- Social Media Management on Udemy (Paid)
- Social Media Management on Coursera (Free)
- Social Media Marketing on Hubspot (Free)
- Social Marketing Certification on Hootsuite
3. Internship
Another way to get relevant skills and experience that can aid your career as a social media manager is by taking an internship. Some master’s program in Digital Marketing and Business Administration offers internship with their curriculum Getting hands-on experience through internships, entry-level jobs and freelance gigs first would be beneficial for you to know what it’s like working as a social media manager. With real-world experience, you can earn the necessary skills and build your portfolio. For a starter, you can keep an eye out for these entry-level job titles:
- Social media coordinator or specialist
- Social media associate
- Marketing Assistant
- Social media analyst
- Digital content producer
4. Get Familiar with Various Skills and Tools
As a social media manager, combining the right social media management tools for your business can help you create brand awareness, generate traffic, increase conversion and ultimately generate sales. This is why you have to get yourself familiar with various social media tools. Most social media management tools are used for scheduling and managing posts, designing social media graphics, creating and editing videos, measuring and optimizing campaign results, social listening and customer experience management. Some tools include Buffer, SproutSocial, Canva, Hootsuite, Coschedule, and Sendible among many others.
5. Establish an online presence
Establishing an online presence will help you explore various social media platforms and practice your own strategies to see what works best. You can open a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other relevant social media channels. This way, you can start implementing various strategies you have learnt about into your own social media marketing. Another way is by creating a LinkedIn profile to showcase your various certifications and relevant degrees. This helps you attract recruiters to your profile. Try posting useful content with consistent planning to increase engagement and reach on your post.
6. Find a community
In business, there is a need to connect with your own people(people in your industry). One of the best ways to do this is by joining a community. There are various communities for social media marketers and managers on Linkedin and Facebook. The best thing about joining a community is that you can get client referrals and learn from the experience of industry leaders. Facebook groups work well for connecting with other social media managers and even finding jobs.
Why would a company hire a remote social media manager?
There are a lot of small and middle-size businesses out there that are just starting up and hoping to minimize costs. They might often want to hire a remote worker to save space and other expenses. They’d rather pay for the hours someone worked on a contract basis.
Furthermore, if you have proven success on your social media pages like Instagram and Facebook that get clients excellent results, companies will be more willing to hire a proven specialist rather than taking a gamble with someone who knows a little bit of everything.
Some Social Media Tools for Remote Workers
Social media management and schedule Tools
- Buffer
- Hootsuite
- Agorapulse
- Sendible
- CoSchedule
Social media analytics Tools
- Sprout Social
- Hootsuite Analytics
- Zoho Social
- Facebook Analytics
- Google Analytics
Keywords Tools
- Ubbersuggest
- SEMrush
- eClincher
Visuals
- Canva
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- Mobile phones
- Inshot
- VN
- Piktochart
Some Social Media Manager Career Faqs
Do I Need a Marketing Degree to Become a Social Media Manager?
Actually, you don’t need a marketing degree or background to become a remote social media manager. Some people take online courses in the field of digital marketing, content marketing and social media marketing to have more knowledge of what they are doing. However, a marketing background or degree will give you an added advantage over someone without a marketing background. But you don’t need to have a marketing background to succeed as a social media manager. Experience, on the hand, is critical. So focus on polishing your social media marketing skills and building a strong marketing portfolio.
Can You Become a Social Media Manager without Experience?
You can be a social media manager without experience. Everybody starts somewhere. But as you go, you have to improve your skills to become better. Consider taking a certification course, polish your skills and use them to build a social media presence. Get an internship or an entry-level job in the created field to give you more industry-related experience. You can even volunteer to manage other people’s social media accounts to get experience.
Where Do I Start in Order to Become a Remote Social Media Manager?
To get started, you need to start taking online courses and certification in social media marketing, content marketing, video editing, graphics design and other related courses. This will help you learn basic social media skills and also recognize you as a professional. As an added advantage you can pursue a master’s in digital marketing or Business Administration. Then you can get an internship or an entry-level social media or digital marketing job to gain relevant industry experience. After about 2 to 3 years of working with a company as a social media marketer, you can transition to working remotely using your skills and experience to attract employees and clients.
What Kinds of Companies Do Social Media Managers Work In?
A social media manager can work for any company that has a social media presence. The world is now digitalized and most companies are moving online to take advantage of the volume of people on various social media channels to reach a large customer base. As a remote social media manager, you can work in the following industry.
- Technology
- Fashion
- Healthcare
- Entertainment
- Sport
- Finance
- Media
- Education
- Lifestyle
- Construction
Is Social Media Marketing a Good Career Path?
I will say the field of social media management is a very lucrative field and if you are considering it as a career path you are definitely making the right choice. Research shows that there are more than 3.5 billion active social media users today and more than 50 million small businesses are using Facebook pages to connect with their customers. Furthermore, a social media manager earns around $16.19 per hour and $56,816 per year on average. These statistics show that the field of social media marketing is growing and more companies are taking advantage of it to reach their target audience. So this can be a good career path for you if you are creative and love to spend time on social media channels.
Conclusion
The world keeps evolving every day and most businesses are looking for new and better ways to sell their product or services to customers. This has made them turn to social media due to the large number of people on each platform. This large volume of people sees a lot of content every day, some of which they engage with and some that they don’t. So as a social media manager, you need to be able to attract customers to your products or services. Therefore you need to develop or polish your writing, design, community management, and analytical skills. Hope this article helps you get started as a remote social media manager.
