9 Required Social Media & Digital Marketing Skills

Social media marketing and digital marketing has grown rapidly. Ten years ago the term social media marketing was not in the vocabulary, Facebook was only for students, and there was no company with a business profile on a social media platform. But now a days being present on social media platforms is considered obligatory. That is why now a days almost every company has a social media and digital marketing manager. But what makes a social media and digital media manager a good one? What skills are required? We will provide you with 9 required skills.

1. Strategy

Social media and digital media managers need to be able to create a strategy for the company’s online presence. A strategy to make sure the company is presented online the way it wants to be presented. Questions that need to be answered are: What message to deliver? What platforms to use? How to write content? What is the overall goal? etc. An overall view on digital marketing and social media activities, and a planning to set goals and try to reach the targeted audience is needed to complete the strategy.

2. Community Management

Social media marketing is all about having a community. A community to talk to, to have a conversation with, to respond to and to analyze. This includes responding to criticism. So the manager needs to have the ability to engage with followers and create communities.

3. Content Knowledge

It is necessary to know what content works for social media marketing & digital marketing and what content doesn’t. Besides that, not all content will work on all platforms. What to post on what platform needs to be understood.

4. Search Engine Optimization

With content knowledge comes Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By using the right content in your posts and using other essentials for search optimization, your SEO results will increase. A couple of other essentials for search optimization are: using keywords, links on social media platforms, using locally-optimized posts, etc. Read more about SEO here.

5. Attention to Execution

Attention to detail is needed every single day, a misspell looks very unprofessional. And accurate execution needs to be delivered by the manager. A specific tactic is needed, to present the company consistently on social media.

6. Writing

Writing skills are required, because every post will include any form of text. Short texts need to be attention grabbing or call-to-actions and long text need to be interesting enough to read until the end. And besides that, all posts need to be written in a way, followers will engage with the brand and the post.

7. Creativity

All your competitors are present on social media, they have the same targeted audience and they want to succeed. Exactly the same as you, that’s why creativity is needed online. To be present on social media in an unique way, in which your company will distinguish from other companies.

8. Analytics

Analytics are very important for social media. Knowing how to track social media activity and measure engagement is necessary, because you need to know what interest your followers and what content they appreciate. This knowledge about analytics can be gained through online courses. Reports about these analytics need to be made, these reports need to be analyzed and by doing this the executives insight on whether goals are being met will be visible.

9. Digital Marketing News

Digital marketing and social media changes constantly; new trends; new features; etc. A social media manager should be on top of these changes and adapt trends or use new features if it’s useful for the social media strategy.

How To Gain Knowledge in Social Media and Digital Marketing

The main skills for a digital and social media manager have been summed above. But of course knowledge of social media platforms and digital marketing is required as a basic. These basic steps can be developed through online courses or corporate courses.  The above summed skills can also be developed by attending corporate courses or following an online course. These courses are useful to gain knowledge about the basic and to delve into digital media and social media.

Digital Media Academy of Canada has partnered with some of the leading digital marketing experts in the digital media world. Our goal is to become acquainted with  online marketing best practices. Our customized corporate training sessions in areas of web design, social media marketing and search engine marketing will help you become proactive at identifying phishing scams, handling negative reviews and comments and using social media as a vehicle to drive business growth.