Nikita Duggal

The demand for social media skills and social media marketing pros is growing exponentially, and if a brand doesn’t exist on social media today, it is likely going to fall behind and lose out to competitors.

Over 2.45 billion population is using Facebook, with millions also using social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter, and 1 billion users on YouTube, it’s obvious that ignoring social media skills will lead to lost opportunities for revenue and brand building. This makes social media marketing skills critically important. If you’re considering a job in social media marketing, or you need to add social media skills to your repertoire as a digital marketer, a certification is an excellent way to get a solid foundation in the field. In addition to the skills you can learn through a certification program, however, there are other skills you must have to succeed in the marketing arena.

Top 12 Social Media Skills

1. Excellent Communication

The first social media skill you must have is – communication. It goes without saying that if you want to represent an organization and engage with their customers, then you need to have strong communication skills. You also need good communication skills for getting along with colleagues, putting your ideas and campaigns into words, and to be the voice of your brand on a global stage!

2. Creativity 

One of the most important attributes of social media marketing skills is creativity. Social media users tend to unfollow a brand if the content shared is repetitive or boring. To keep followers engaged and hooked, social media marketers need to consistently come up with new and engaging ideas, creative initiatives, and campaigns. From interactive content to contests to viral videos, social media marketers will need to think of innovative ways to stand apart from the millions of others on social media.

3. Writing Ability

Although images and videos dominate much of social media skills, writing also plays a critical role. Whether you’re creating a post or crafting a tweet, writing stands as an essential part of a social media marketer’s job profile. If headlines aren’t magnetic or captivating enough, it’s likely people are not going to be motivated enough to click.

4. Content Curation 

Content curation has always been a major part of social media marketing skills, primarily for those businesses that do not have the time to create a steady flow of content on their own. Content curation is an important social media marketing skill since they will need to know when to share, what to share and how to share, in addition to being familiar with content sources and audience preferences.

5. Project Management

As multi-taskers extraordinaire, social media marketers need good project management skills. They need to create publishing schedules, track contacts, and maintain social media profiles. They will need to run reports, meet with designers and writers, manage ad budgets, and much more. With strong project management skills, the best social media managers will stay on top of all tasks as well as know when content needs to be published, what to plan for, and how to keep track of all the different social media conversations going on.

6. Aptitude to Learn

You already know technology changes constantly and new social media platforms appear while and new features are regularly added to the existing platforms, be it Instagram reels or LinkedIn stories. In addition to that flux, consumer expectations can change on a whim as well. A good social media marketer willingly learns on-the-fly as needed.

7. Marketing 

Although you’re using social media as the tool, you’re still marketing, which means a must have social media skill is marketing and you need a solid understanding of basic marketing principles. You don’t need a marketing degree, but you do need good foundational knowledge about how marketing works.

8. Flexibility

Change is a constant in social media, and the best social media marketers are those who can quickly adapt to a new situation or respond to something that is happening in the social media environment, whether good or bad. This makes flexibility another must have social media skill!

9. Strategic Thinking

Next in the list of top social media skills comes strategic thinking. Social media might seem like it’s all fun, but successful social media marketing requires strategy. You can learn social media strategy as part of your training, but it helps to have a mind that works that way too, and a natural aptitude for strategic thinking.

10. Relationship Building 

Social media marketers also need to reach out to influencers and that makes relationship building a crucial skill to develop.

11. Community Management 

Take a close look at the brands with a big social media presence and you’ll see they all have one thing in common: community, a must-have social media skill! Social media marketing requires building connections and an online community to succeed.

12. Analytical Skills 

Finally, at the end of the day, you need to know if your marketing is working. And that’s why analytical skill is one of the most important and advantageous social media skill. You can learn how to check metrics and reporting, but having an analytical mind will help you make sense of all that data—so you can make informed decisions instead of relying on assumptions.

Social Media Marketing Skills in a Resume

To get your dream job in Social Media Marketing, you need to have a solid resume. Highlighting SMM skills that are used in day-to-today life of a marketer can help you bag the job faster. Glace through these quintessential Social Media Marketing skills for resume –

1. Planning and Strategy – Life of a social media marketer circulates around making strategy and growth planners on a monthly basis.
2. Research-oriented – All the insights SMM professionals derive are through a solid research of what’s happening in the marketing. It is essential to have good research skills to make a monthly planner.
3. Community Building – Social media marketing is just like building a community of your potential customers. Hence, SMM professionals should know how to engage with the right people.
4. Content Marketing – Quality content is liked by everyone. The chances of your posts reaching a higher number of people increases if your content is powerful and stands out. Thus, this social media marketing skill in your resume can do wonders!
5. Analytics Skills – Everything we do in marketing is supported by analytics as it is the only way to measure the impact of your inputs. Therefore, if you are good with numbers then you have the right social media marketing skills!

FAQs

1. What are the 3 key attributes of social media marketing?

The 3 main social media attributes are developing a social media profile, creating amazing content and analyzing and reporting the engagement.

2. What is the most important social media marketing skill?

The most important social media marketing skill is to produce content that matches with the interests of your target audience, and later helps your brand with conversions.

3. How do you list social media skills on a resume?

The list of social media marketing skills on a resume should be a mix of your hard and soft skills. Mention the domain related skills at the top and soft skills at the bottom.

4. How can I learn social media marketing skills?

Pursuing a professional course from a well known organization can help you grow your social media marketing skills. You can sign-up for the Advanced Social Media Certification Training Course and learn all the essential skills, tools and techniques to become a successful SMM professional.

Source:   Simplilearn