Aleisha White

For a job that didn’t even exist 20 years ago, the role of a social media manager is up there with some of the most critical in digital marketing today.

Think about it. Whereas social media was once just a channel for brands and audiences to find one another, short-form video now yields thehighest returns of any content format by a long shot (60%). That’s across small businesses through to enterprise. What was once a top-of-funnel digital marketing function is now the entire funnel.

Inject the added role of a first-party data and research engine — imperative to meeting the modern consumer’s personalization expectations — and you’ve got a role with significant strategic responsibility.

If you’re looking to hire a social media manager (SMM), progress your career or start managing your own brand’s socials, this guide overviews key skills, daily responsibilities and how an effective SMM bridges consumer and brand goals to drive growth.

What’s a Social Media Manager Responsible For?

A social media specialist is the custodian of a brand’s digital reputation. Their job is to connect the dots between erratic platform-native trends and deep-funnel business objectives to drive “measurable ROI.” In this context, “measurable ROI” might be anything from revenue, leads, conversions or brand reputation — a far cry from the likes, follows and shares we used to care about. (They still matter, but like most things in marketing, they’re just not enough anymore.)

SMMs translate social culture to brands and brand culture to the socials by synthesizing real-time audience sentiment and algorithmic shifts into fast, functional creative production. In doing this, they turn individual social interactions into a scalable process for finding customers, retaining them and making money.

Common responsibilities of an SMM and their teams include:

1. Strategizing To Drive Business Objectives

The social media manager must know what a brand is trying to achieve and deliver on those goals through its social presence. Creating a strong strategy requires a deep understanding of social media tactics — content formats, platforms, CTAs, ads, social media handles, influencer marketing — and clarity about the brand’s competition. 

They must be well acquainted with target audiences across channels and be able to select content topics and delivery formats that will generate interest, loyalty and revenue from those people.

2. Creating Content for Multiple Platforms

A social media manager finds relevant or trending content ideas to share across platforms. It’s common to repurpose existing assets to drive strategic engagement, such as brand awareness, conversions, community building or supporting a product release. In short, provided the business already produces assets, the SMM won’t have to create everything from scratch.

3. Organizing Content Calendars

To plan and distribute content, an SMM uses a content calendar, usually in a Google Sheet or similar format. This calendar tracks individual assets throughout production, delineates accountability and maps how, where and when posts will be distributed.

4. Monitoring Analytics and Proving ROI

Unless you’re doing social media for fun, proving ROI — demonstrating that you can grow audiences, make money and drive lifetime value — is a big one. Social media managers look to platform-native analytics suites and Google Analytics to determine how effectively their strategy drives web traffic, conversions and ROI. That demonstrates how a strategy turns into numbers, and how those numbers translate into business value.

5. Community-Building

Social media is where people go to connect, and they connect with brands there, too. An SMM builds community around a brand, humanizing it through values, vision and interactions. They respond to comments and messages, encourage user-generated content (UGC) and manage public relations and reputational headwinds. 

There’s also an element of social listening (understanding audience sentiment to improve products, services and communications) that helps them nurture relationships with their target audience. In some cases, this role may go to a dedicated community manager, rather than the social manager.

6. Driving Sales and Revenue Goals

Social media platforms, including TikTok and Instagram, are increasingly used to meet commercial ends at the bottom of the funnel. Through product discovery initiatives and social sales channels, SMMs drive direct conversions and revenue goals.

Do Agency and In-House Social Media Manager Roles Have Different Responsibilities?

Yes, but they’re still birds of a feather. In-house social media specialists often have a project-driven focus, collaborating with different teams to meet internal KPIs and business objectives. They require deep knowledge of one brand and one industry, as they have long-term ownership over project outcomes.  

In an agency, an SMM works across multiple brands and industries, so breadth of knowledge is a strength. Their job is deadline-driven and often switches context and delivery style, making agility important, too. Client management and reporting are part of the role, and retention and campaign performance matter more than internal KPIs.

10 Key Skills Social Media Managers Need

Building a high-altitude social media presence is part skill and part art. A blend of creativity, a strategic mindset and foundations in digital marketing form the trifecta of social media management. 

The skills a social media specialist needs to succeed in their role include:

  1. Communication: SMMs need a solid grasp on writing various types of content and sales copy, reaching diverse audiences in their native vernacular. They must also communicate with cross-functional teams and convey campaign performance to internal and external stakeholders.
  2. Research: SMMs research content trends, understand audiences’ feelings about the brand and its products and, for brownie points, collect first-party data to drive personalization efforts and valuable market insights.
  3. Customer service and relationship management: While public-facing crisis management is at the extreme end of the line, an SMM should be able to handle it with a level head, alongside all things relationship-building, including responding to basic comments and messages.
  4. SEO and optimization knowledge: As SEO and social media become increasingly interlinked, social media managers should be using SEO to optimize posts and support the brand’s broader digital marketing ecosystem.
  5. Creativity and design: A combination of originality, visual design principles and execution is essential in this role. While a graphic design background can support your success, there are also automation tools to take the blood, sweat and tears out of images these days.
  6. Data analytics and reporting: Translating campaign numbers into actionable insights proves value and drives a social media strategy forward.
  7. Social media expertise: Most of the other skills on this list you can learn on the job, but without a strong experiential foundation in social media platforms, tactics and strategies, it’s hard to establish baseline credibility.
  8. Budgeting: Allocating slim budgets to big projects that drive even bigger revenue (so you can get a higher budget next financial year) is an art and a science. AI can help when cost-cutting is in order.
  9. AI: Automating content planning, production and data reporting makes the job much easier. You’ll need a solid manual handle on all three before you give the machine the reins — and your human oversight is still the boss.
  10. Soft skills: Social media managers need a solid dose of empathy, adaptability and organization to go far in this role.

Common Tools Social Media Managers Use

An SMM’s tech stack is about centralizing data as much as it is about convenience. A senior social media manager might use Hootsuite or Sprout Social to synchronize cross-platform messaging and perform social listening. While these tools do help with scheduling and communications, they also maintain brand equilibrium across fragmented platforms.

For production, Canva or the Adobe Creative Suite ramp visual velocity, ensuring the brand can pivot where and when it needs to. By all means, AI integrations play a significant role in responding to the need for speed. In that line, generative AI platforms can help with building post copy and even ideation or strategy — however, with two-thirds of consumers saying they’re unlikely to engage with AI content, releasing ChatGPT creative without human insight and validation isn’t recommended. (Audiences can taste it in these bite-sized interactions, and authenticity underpins success on social platforms in a big way.)

By integrating these with Google Analytics and platform analytics suites, the SMM transforms social signals into a traceable revenue map, demonstrating that their efforts actively contribute to business goals.

How SMMs Contribute to Brand and Business Growth

An SMM’s job is to align their marketing strategy with specific commercial outcomes. Here’s how that translates to tangible growth:

  • Brand awareness: Leveraging social media trends and short-form video positions the brand in front of hungry eyes, filling the top of the funnel with qualified attention.
  • Community engagement: By performing consistent community management, they nurture that attention into loyalty mid-funnel, moving followers closer to the purchase.
  • Consumer insights and R&D: Through social listening, SMMs gather information on what the audience actually wants, feeding that intel back to product teams to shape future development.
  • Direct revenue: Social commerce and shoppable links shorten the path to purchase, driving direct conversions within the app.
  • B2B lead generation: They establish the brand as an industry authority, using social media for B2B marketing (hello, LinkedIn) to reach decision-makers through targeted, valuable content.

Effectively, a social media manager and their team flex their creative, interpersonal and strategic marketing skills to strengthen audience-to-brand connections and generate demonstrable ROI in the process. 

Have You Got What It Takes To Grow a Social Presence Strategically?

The SMM role is no longer a peripheral marketing function — and its rise to fame has hit marketing as hard and fast as the social channels themselves. We live in a time where brand reputation and consumer trust are primary currencies in business, so being or hiring a professional who can grow a brand’s presence strategically is a massive competitive advantage.

Use this guide to vet the expertise you need — and remember, if you don’t have the space to run the socials on your own, you can always reach out to pros for temporary or ongoing support.