Overview

Social Media Management is the process of doing all the social media maintenance and can also be the job of keeping track of what’s been done, what’s next, how it’s working, and the results it’s producing. Social Media Management is basically doing the actual work needed in order to perform Social Media Marketing.

With that being said, I want to clarify first that there are many individuals who are now calling themselves, "Social Media Managers". Unfortunately, many of these individuals are people who have little to no actual management skills and stepped into this position because of their age group, being young, and perceived to be the best candidate for the position since they have a Facebook page, understand texting and possibly have a Twitter account. The mere fact these individuals have the skills to perform SOME of the tasks regarding Social Media in no way qualifies them for the job. The decision to place them in this position is partially because many of today's business executives have no idea what Social Media is or what it isn't. Furthermore, they equally have no idea what skill sets are needed in order to fulfill the tasks to do the job. I recently read about someone who thought they made a good Social Media Manager because she had a Public Relations Degree and had also studied Marketing. This, in my opinion, but an opinion made of one of working in the Internet Marketing industy for over 17 years, is ridiculous. Social Media is more than just typing some content, Google Adwords, Facebook friending or statistical charts and graphs. But what are those tasks, and does a Social Media Manager really have to know how to do the actual tasks required in order to conduct Social Media tasks? I believe they do and for these reasons:

1. A Social Media Manager has to at least have a firm understanding of ALL the skills required in order to perform Social Media tasks. They may or may not possess all the skill sets needed but they need to know what and how its components work together and separately.
   
   
1. What are QR Codes and how do you create them?
   
   
2. How to FTP files.
   
   
3. How to understand, read, write and edit HTML, XHTML, CSS, basic Javascript, and Flash code at a minimum.
   
   
4. How to create, edit and save graphics in various formats.
   
   
5. How to take high end photographs and use a 35mm camera, and save, edit, crop and reformat photos.
   
   
6. How to write in English with at least a junior college level of communication skills. I hesitate to put Journalism as a requirement because Journalism is an entirely different writing style which is entirely WRONG for the type of communication required in Social Media. Social Media is more personal sounding in tone. Journalism is geared toward more of a newspaper style. (This is excluding the fact some blogs are written in a journalistic style, but blogs are only ONE small part of Social Media and the writing required or needed far outweighs the needs of one blog. Now there are those instances when the job is primarily managing journalistic style blogs. First, these are not the norm and second, these are then not Social Media but rather a job closer to an Editor or Copywriter and are merely blog maintenance.)
   
   
7. How to shoot, edit, crop, and save in various formats, video. Also, how to add effects and text to preshot video as well as to know which video formats can work on the web and which do not. Also, understanding the differences between formats; mp4, avi, flv, mov, wmv, etc.
   
   
8. How and if slides can be converted into a useable format for simple video files.
   
   
9. How to perform, conduct and manage SEO, Search Engine Optimization and SEM, Search Engine Marketing and what the difference is between them. Also, whether or not one or both are necessary. My reasoning is simple; you can do SEO without the need for SEM but you can't do SEM without doing SEO because the basic first steps of SEM is making sure SEO has been done. Search Engine Marketing is a branch of Social Media Management just as Mobile Marketing and Video Marketing are as well. A construction foreman may not lay the concrete flooring but he has to be able to recognize its missing. Social Media Marketing encompasses ALL of the branches of which a Social Media Manager is supposed to be able to recognize, analyze, and rectify. A construction foreman who can't recognize the floor is missing builds a building in vain because there is nothing to hold the framework together. The same holds true for Social Media.
   
   
10. How to record, mix, edit and embed audio files, in addition to understanding the different formats needed and used for various hardware; smart phones, ipods, mp3 players, cds, dvd, etc.; in addition to understanding how and which formats can be used for streaming vs. downloading, how to trouble shoot it if it doesn't work and how to set it up.
    
    
11. How to add and edit profile pages and backgrounds of various Social Media Networks such as Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
    
    
2. They need to have a high level of Internet and Social Media terminology. They need to know a pound sign is a hash mark for twitter and why at other times it can't be used in certain places; one reason is because it’s also used in java script code, which if used in certain situations can cause coding errors.
   
   
3. A Social Media Manager is like a foreman at a construction job. He is the one who is ultimately responsible for the outcome of the job. If the foreman doesn't have the skill sets or knowledge of how things are supposed to work and look, how will he know if they're done wrong? The answer is obvious; he won't, until it’s too late.
   
   
4. A Social Media Manager can't be an introvert due to the fact it’s a "Socially Interactive" job. They have to like to have relationships with people and be able to communicate with them. But, it’s also important to not have someone who is HYPER social; meaning, they never shut up on or offline. This is someone who doesn't know when NOT to communicate. A good Social Media Manager has to know what to say, when to say it, and where to say it. But, most importantly they have to have the maturity to know when NOT to say anything, what NOT to say, and where NOT to say anything. Someone who is "Hyper Social" is an addict; someone who HAS to communicate about anything and everything.
   
   
5. A Social Media Manager has to ABOVE reproach. These are people you are allowing to REPRESENT your company, its reputation and its branding. I personally believe Social Media Managers should possess a Secret Clearance or at least a background check. Most people would believe this to be unnecessary but I believe it’s because they don't understand the risks. A Social Media Manager would make an excellent corporate spy for a competitor. It also opens the door to revealing delicate information which was not meant to be made public; such as finding rats in a restaurant, financial problems which could make the company's stock crash, a witness for a trial who happens to be a well-known figure, a children's store who hired a pedophile, etc. Conducting a background check at a minimum only makes common sense. A Social Media Manager sits in a position where they may at times be privy to personal and financial information due to the sheer nature of the job. A username and password used at one place may be the same one you use at other places such as a LinkedIn profile that asks "secret" questions that are the same thing somewhere else. Knowing these answers can allow someone the backdoor key to obtaining all your personal and company information. Prevention ALWAYS outweighs a cure.
   
   
6. A good Social Media Manager should be looking for critical or damaging information which has been posted about you or your company. They are to act as a line of defense and often a "first response" to a customer complaint online and try to resolve customer issues when possible.

In conclusion; a competent Social Media Manager needs to know more than just some marketing or public relations theory they learned in college. I believe this is one of those rare industries which require a large amount of knowledge about a lot of different technical skills. If you hire one without these varied technical skills your costs will increase because, as the needs arise to have tasks performed, which should have been done by the Social Media Manager, you will have to outsource or hire someone else to fill the skill void they lack. Also, Social Media Managers with limited skill sets leave a greater chance for not only not being able to perform the tasks they were hired for but also the risk of them performing what they did believe they knew incorrectly, which can cause lost time, money and possible other repercussions.

Lastly, people are being told they can become Social Media Managers, Social Media Marketers, Mobile Marketers, etc., with barely any skills or knowledge needed to perform them. Many of these are online marketers who knowingly or unknowingly entice people into thinking they can perform these jobs even though they have limited skills at best; of which they charge them for of course. This is unfair to the people who believe it but even more so to the business owners who believe they are getting a professional when in truth all they are obtaining is a misguided person who has no business being hired any more than I should to repair your car after reading a car manual. Just because you can read a manual or watch a training video, it doesn't create a professional overnight and their experience and skills to perform it would be far from being worth what they would charge claiming to be one.