How to Pursue a Career in Social Media

You love spending time on Facebook, don’t you?! What about Twitter or Instagram? I’m sure you regularly share updates on these social platforms to engage with family and friends. What if I tell you that you can make a career in social media doing what you love? Sounds good? Then, let’s learn the essentials.

Social media as a career option is really hot! Every business owner wants to increase their reach and social media is the best place to do that. Capturing the target audience, especially the millennials, is extremely important for every brand and this is where social channels come into play.

Decide Whether a Social Media Career Is Right for You

Don’t pursue a career in social media only because it is fun and it pays well. The biggest question is, do you really have an interest in this field? Ask the following questions to yourself and decide whether a career in social media is right for you.

• Are you a great communicator?
• Do you have a knack for storytelling?
• Do you love to play with numbers?
• Are you good at analytics?

If your answer is YES, then you are all set.

Aside from being fun and rewarding, social media positions can also be lucrative. CNN Money lists social media manager as one of the top 100 careers with big growth, great pay, and satisfying work. According to CNN, top pay for social media managers climbs to $89,900 with a 10-year job growth of 9%.

Career Options in Social Media

The top areas in social media marketing include:

• Social Media Manager
• Social Media Consultant
• Social Media Optimization Coordinator
• Social Media Campaign Manager
• Social Media Advertising Specialist
• Social Media Data Analytics

Depending on your skills and areas of expertise, you can decide the best area for you.

Job Responsibilities as a Social Media Consultant

You must be wondering what the job responsibilities are when starting a career as a social media consultant. The top responsibilities are shared below:

• Strategy planning for maintaining a powerful presence of the brand on different social media platforms.
• Analyzing the activities of the top competitors on different social platforms.
• Sharing useful and relevant updates on social media in order to build a loyal following of prospects.
• Strategy planning to increase the likes and followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and other top platforms.
• Responding to user comments on social media and establish a strong relationship with the prospects.
• Creating editorial calendars for the syndication of content.
• Creating and optimizing company pages on different social media platforms.
• Determining the Key Performance Indicators to measure the performance of different social media campaigns.
• Working in coordination with other marketing departments so that the branding remains consistent across all the marketing channels.
• Creating and running different ad campaigns on the top social media platforms.
• Maximizing the overall profits by regularly analyzing the underperforming and top performing campaigns.
• Optimizing the ad text in order to decrease the CPC and improve the overall ROI.
• Communicating with clients and keeping them informed about progress.
• Continuously monitoring brand presence on social media and optimizing it for enhanced brand visibility.
• Analyzing available data to optimize the performance of existing social media campaigns.

Essential Certifications and Degrees

You can’t make a good career in any field unless you undertake proper education and training. Below I am recommending some courses and degrees (outside of a traditional degree) that are extremely helpful to sharpen your skills and knowledge on social media:

• Social Media Certification from the Online Marketing Institute.
• Facebook Certification from Blueprint.
• Twitter Flight School Certification.
• Social Media Certification from Hubspot.
• Social Marketing Certification from Hootsuite.
• Social Media Certification from National Institute For Social Media.

Tips to Start Your Social Media Career

• Find out the best job options available on sites like on Indeed, Monster or Dice. Look at the job descriptions and see the top skills that are in demand.
• Create your own social media profiles on the top platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• Read the case studies of top brands and learn the strategies applied.
• You need to be on top of industry news so make sure you regularly read the top blogs related to the industry. Some of the best ones are Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today and Hubspot.
• Read good books on social media. Some of the great books that I highly recommend are Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, The Art of Social Media and Epic Content Marketing.
• You need to be super good at analytics if you want to reach great heights in your social media career. I recommend reading Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik which will teach you all the lessons to become a super analytics expert.
• Attend the top social media conferences because it will give you a chance to network with top professionals. Moreover, you get to learn a lot about new trends and technologies in the social media stream. Some of the top social conferences you must attend are PubCon, CMX Summit, Social Tools Summit, Social Fresh Conference, Corporate Social Media Summit etc.
• Start your own blog and share posts related to social media. This will help in two ways. First, you will be able to create your own brand and second, you will deepen your knowledge on social media.
• Watch YouTube videos related to social media and attend webinars by industry experts. This will help you learn all the extra skills needed to succeed in this field.
• Learn to master the use of top social media management tools like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, IFTTT, Buffer, Sprout Social, Hubspot and Google Analytics.

Conclusion

Making a career in social media is easy but rising higher in your career is not. If you really want to move ahead from your peers then you need to acquire as much knowledge possible and gain relevant practical experience.