The Role of the Social Media Marketer

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Social media marketer

Let’s now consider the role of a social media marketer . The social media marketer:

• Oversees a brand’s interactions with its customers on social networking platforms
• Runs company social media advertising campaigns

As a social media marketer, you need to develop several key skills and attributes in order to succeed in your role. For example, you should aim to:

• Encourage engagement by posting valuable content.
• Connect and participate in conversations and interactions to build relationships.
• Offer a quality experience to those participating in the engagement.

In essence, you have to be social at the core. But what exactly does that mean? You need to facilitate, encourage, and participate in conversations on social media to help connect with others and subsequently build relationships.

Roles and responsibilities

As a social media marketer, you need to fulfill a number of important roles. These include the following:

• Developing a comprehensive content strategy that outlines the types of content you will create, the themes or topics you will cover, and the frequency of posting
• Conducting thorough research to understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, preferences, and behaviors
• Creating, curating, and managing all published content including photo, video, and graphics
• Monitoring, listening to, and responding to the community in a manner that ultimately drives business
• Overseeing design of social assets (including channel branding, graphics, thumbnails, ads, landing pages, blog, and so on), and…
• Nurturing and growing the community and any influencer outreach efforts

Your role essentially involves showcasing your brand to a vast audience. By establishing a strong online presence, social media marketers can increase brand visibility and reach a larger number of potential customers.

Your role also involves engaging with others , fostering conversations, and establishing connections. By building relationships within your community, you enhance brand loyalty and trust.

Remember that social interactions should involve a value exchange . In other words, don’t just post for the sake of posting or to meet some metric! When you participate in conversations, aim to provide either entertaining content or useful information that resonates with and positively impacts the community.

Where does social media marketer fit in?

Where does the social media marketer role fit within a wider marketing department and within the whole organization?

Within the Marketing department, you need to do the following:

• Collaborate with other marketing team members to ensure social media content aligns with the overall marketing strategy.
• Integrate social media into broader campaigns, coordinate messaging, and ensure consistency across different marketing channels.
• Contribute insights and recommendations regarding target audience demographics, behavior, and preferences which can help to inform future marketing campaigns and strategies.
• Collaborate with content creators, copywriters, and graphic designers to develop and distribute engaging content on social media platforms.

And within the wider organization, you should aim to do the following:

• Build and maintain the organization’s brand awareness and reputation – shaping how the brand is perceived. You can do this by actively managing social media channels, engaging with customers, and fostering positive relationships.
• Serve as a front-line connection to customers – responding to inquiries, addressing customer concerns, and providing support through social media channels, helping to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Gather valuable insights including market research, customer feedback, industry trends, and competitor activities.
• Collaborate with various departments such as sales, customer service, HR, public relations, and product teams. And…
• Provide social media support for product launches, sales promotions, events, and recruitment.

As a social media marketer, you contribute to the wider marketing strategy, brand building, customer engagement, and insights. At the same time, you should collaborate with other departments to drive overall goals and success.