It was merely hard to envisage how social media marketing would play a critical role in a business’s success just a decade ago. These days, this field thrives with such extraordinary career opportunities that CNNMoney has listed it among 100 careers with high growth and great pay. If you are curious about what ‘entry level social media jobs‘ look like and how to obtain practical experience in this field, Jobandedu‘s article will pique your interest!
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Social Media Career Options
Giving the ever-changing evolution of social media, it is not surprising when professional standards and qualification requirements vary. If you’re a greenhorn in this area, you may encounter difficulty in finding what social marketing consists of or what your tasks and responsibilities will be. You can embark on a new job hunt journey by searching for such keywords as digital media, social marketing, digital marketing, or social media in general.
Though you may feel confused at non-standard job titles at first, the job titles can help you know about your prospective employers’ demands. For example, some enterprises offer job positions such as social media guru, digital media ninja, interactive media czar, or content swami, implying that they need someone with experience and qualifications.
Due to the social marketing field’s open-ended nature, you cannot know precisely the jobs’ requirements, even for traditional-sounding titles. At first, it can be challenging to figure out if you will work with other social media employees. Hence, you should ask the recruiters about your job’s tasks and responsibilities.
Social Media Career Growth
It is not exaggerating when we say social media careers and other marketing-related careers are flourishing. Understandably, businesses in almost every industry need to engage more potential customers and establish a long-lasting relationship with them. If they want to survive in the current competitive market, they have to adopt effective social media marketing strategies. This leads to the boom of social media marketing as a promising avenue for career development worldwide.
As previously mentioned, social media marketing positions are among the top 100 careers, with a 9% rise in job growth over a decade. LinkedIn revealed that social media jobs on this platform had witnessed an upward trend since 2010. According to Burning Glass, there were about 174,000 digital marketing job openings, accounting for 39% of 446,000 marketing positions in 2016. Remarkably, job descriptions containing “social media” also tripled over the last decade.
But is it a temporary boom? Not at all. By contrast, social media jobs will remain stable. Giving social media’s role in shaping how businesses market with their customers, there is a permanent need for social media jobs. The Covid-19 pandemic has proved this since companies needed social media staff more than ever to remain on top of rising virtual and social communications with their customers.
Social Media Skills & Responsibilities
KPIs
Whatever social media-related jobs you may have, you have to meet Key Responsible Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are variable since it depends on the position and its goal. KPI management may be related to dashboards, re-tweets, sales targets, views, shares, and more. Besides, you have to manage social marketing budgets and run profit analysis.
Writing Skills
As Mark Twain said, “I’m sorry to write such a long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one”, writing less is more complicated and mentally demanding than writing more. Conveying your message essence to the target audience is never an easy task for social marketing workers. They should master the arts of writing product pitches, composing pithy, onboard tweets, posts, etc.
Customer Service Skills
A recent SCORE study showed that about 77% of small enterprises take advantage of social media to manage their business functions such as PR and customer service. Hence, if you are in a social media marketing team, you need to possess tactful customer service skills. How to communicate, resolve complaints and conflicts from customers, etc., are what social media workers have to master.
Top 5 Entry-level Social Media Jobs
If you’re hunting for jobs, typing the search phrase “social media marketing” will pull up plenty of relevant listings to your skillset. Thus, you can have a potentially vast pool of jobs for application.
Some of these jobs overlap with no clear-cut distinctions. Businesses that use these terms may need candidates with similar qualifications, skills, and attitudes to fill out based on their particular needs.
Social Media Assistant
Social media assistant is one of the entry-level social media jobs that can be an avenue for your professional development. For this position, you are in charge of brainstorming campaigns, creating and updating social media posts, including keywords for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and using analytics tools to evaluate the campaign’s success.
Social media employees can come from diverse backgrounds, but recruiters prefer those with bachelor’s degrees in marketing, journalism, or mass communication. Besides, it will be a big plus if you have completed relevant courses in social media and digital marketing.
Salary: According to Glassdoor, a social media assistant’s salary is from $33,000 to $41,000 each year.
Content Strategist
This entry-level social media job’s core tasks include developing a content strategy according to the business’s objectives and customers’ requirements. As a content strategist, you are responsible for creating and keeping editorial calendars, taxonomies, style guides, content plans, etc. Besides, you may need to manage other employees/freelancers, oversee budgets, and support technical integration of content.
In terms of skills, a content strategist is supposedly a great idea generator. In addition to communication and problem-solving skills, you should be capable of collecting and analyzing key business and user insights. Also, you have to apply your strategic planning skills to ensure a long-term vision for your company’s content.
Salary: According to PayScale, the annual average for social media strategists is a bit higher than that of social media assistants, at about $61,197.
Social Media Director
Director of social media is a position that many desire. If you get hired for this position, you are responsible for planning strategies and possibly leading others. You will devise a schedule for your company’s blog posts on several platforms. Also, you may write blogs or oversee a team of content writers.
As a social media director, you are the one who takes the lead in bringing your company’s “voice” to the clients and showing its social media personality. Hence, you need to have a deep understanding of as well as hands-on experience in social marketing.
Other possible titles for this position may include social media marketing manager, social media communication director/ manager, social media relations director/ manager, or social media strategy director/manager.
Salary: According to PayScale, directors/managers of social media can get an average salary of $72,136 each year.
Social Media Specialist
The social media specialist is accountable for managing customers’ social media profiles and implementing marketing strategies. For social media specialist jobs, your responsibilities may include but are not limited to developing and maintaining video feeds, blogs, and social networking sites. Also, you need to provide clients with detailed analytics as well as data and resource management reports.
Besides qualifications and experience related to social media, you need to demonstrate abilities and skills to manage time and work under pressure. You usually have to deliver various projects on a tight schedule and budget without any error in a fast-paced working environment.
Salary: According to Glassdoor, a social media specialist earns on average about $45,405 per year.
Social Media Manager
A social media manager is in charge of monitoring and running a company’s social networks. Working with marketing or social media team members, you devise marketing strategies or schemes to promote your company brand. Also, you need to analyze project results with tools such as SEMrush or Google Analytics. Also, you may lead other team members and help them stay on track towards realizing the company’s goals.
Salary: According to PayScale, a social media manager can get an average salary of $51,170 annually.
Social Media Marketing Experience
Do these above social media jobs sound interesting to you? Social media marketing is on the boom quickly. Hence, you may have to face significant competition to get the jobs. But you can follow the recommended steps below.
Get An Education
To secure a social media job, you should possess a related diploma and certificates to stand out from others. Prospective employees prefer individuals with those criteria because they have more strategic and technical knowledge.
Show Strategic Knowledge
There are too many self-proclaimed social media marketers who just slap together random posts. This is never enough to obtain actual results with social marketing. Thus, you need to show your strategic knowledge to the employers. They need someone who can engage and nurture leads on various platforms. During an interview, you need to persuade the interviewers that you have good strategic knowledge.
Provide Some Samples
It’s difficult to embark on social media jobs if you have not accumulated much work experience. However, you can build a portfolio to provide prospective employers with samples of what you can do. Your portfolio needs to include both specific contents you’ve created and successful campaigns you’ve run.
To build a portfolio, you can search for some freelance gigs. Though many are unpaid or low-paying, you can use them to create your portfolio early on. Also, you can develop your social media channel. You can instantly give it to employers if they require you to provide your work samples.
Conclusion About Social Media Jobs
In the last decade, social media marketing jobs have thrived, catching up with the burgeon social platforms and their quickly evolving audience members. If you’re agile and adaptable, social media marketing is an avenue for your professional growth. You need to start with proper education and demonstrate your knowledge and ability through your portfolio to become an ideal fit for entry-level social media jobs.
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