Managing Social Media accounts is a process of creating, scheduling, and sharing variable content on different social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. As long as this content corresponds with the main objectives of the business. The goal is to introduce your brand to the public and to provide a new viewpoint to guide and help you to develop and promote the content, and to increase sales.

The social media account manager is the person who manages the Profiles by publishing  varied content (texts, photos, videos, etc.) and then following and analyzing the performance and answering the queries and comments of the followers.

This person can be considered the official representative of the brand. He shares its ideas and values, and what it presents to the target audience, in order to increase awareness of the brand and attract more new clients.

What are the skills required for managing social media networks?

1. Building a Strategy:

Strategic planning means building a practical vision of the project by prioritizing its objectives, determining the process and procedures to be taken, and defining the means and factors which help to achieve these goals on social media networks. The account manager needs to be able to analyze and evaluate the objectives in detail, in terms of their achievability. Then the account manager needs to put a realistic plan in which he/she takes several factors into consideration, such as the executive and marketing costs, the timetable, and how it accommodates the goals.

2. Improving the Social Media Accounts:

Improving the social media accounts means setting them comprehensively and providing distinguished content which appeals to the target audience in order to gain reactions and have the services visible to the highest number of people. Adding all the required information is the first step towards improving the account. This information includes: the name of the project, classification, adding a detailed description of the page objectives, including other mediums of contact, and linking all the pages to each other by adding the buttons to move between different sites from one account to another.

3. Protecting the Social Media Accounts:

Social media account managers disregard the “account lockout” step, even though it is the most important in account management. Here are some tips to secure social media accounts against hackers:

  • Change password on a monthly basis.
  • Enable two-step verification.
  • Enable activation of accounts: inactive accounts are most likely to be hacked.
  • Do not open unknown links.

4. Data Analysis:

Data analysis is the measurement of the influence of campaigns and marketing initiatives done through the account, and determining the investment profit by preparing reports on the data, and monitoring the process or delay over time.

5. Marketing:

Marketing for a service or a product of a brand is the main objective of creating these accounts on social media networks. To execute successful marketing campaigns, one must constantly keep up with the market by being familiar with the competitors' marketing campaigns, monitoring the level of public interaction with them, and determining the most attractive factor for the audience.

6. Research:

Research skill is an influencing skill that affects the success of the published content and the target audience's quantity. The ability to do research is one of the fundamental skills to build content over which brands compete to expand and dominate the market. In the age of fake content, the public is attracted to the truth. This requires further research to find authentic resources which provide appropriate content.

7. Customer Service:

An account manager needs to monitor the interaction activity on the account on a daily basis, take the customers’ opinions into consideration, follow their comments and answer their queries. The response time influences customer satisfaction. Thus, the account manager must make sure to provide quick responses.  Enabling the automated response is an option in case there is no account manager. Keeping up with customer service is the main factor to maintain the customers.

8. Time management:

The responsibilities of a social media account manager are endless, and at times they have to do more than one task. Thus, a practical schedule must be set and implemented to accomplish all the assigned tasks. The manager must plan for each account separately; it is preferable not to open more than one account simultaneously since it influences the tasks achieved for each account. At this point, it is important to determine a timetable for each account in accordance with the priorities of each one.

9. Content writing:

Content writing is one of the essential skills for social media marketing. A good style of content writing is required from the social media account manager.

Content writing requires knowledge of how to choose post titles, writing the content in an attractive marketing form that does not have long boring sentences, and employing these skills to reach the public on the widest range while still leaving a space for the audience to interact by asking questions or putting a poll at the end of the post for people to answer.

The content must correspond with the interactive trends on social media networks. The manager must focus on the trending questions every day. This helps to target the highest number of audiences.

10. Communication skills:

One of the main reasons for social media networks is to enhance direct communication between the public and the brand. Social media networks are the best place to achieve this communication with the highest number of clients. In addition to written communication, a live broadcast feature is available on these networks. It provides account managers with the option of visual or audio communication with the audience and followers to directly answer their queries and share any new information or details regarding the brand.

These are the main skills you need to manage your accounts on social media professionally. What other skills do you think are important for a social media account manager to have?