A social media manager is responsible for monitoring and posting to all social media outlets as well as interacting with and growing a company’s audience. The ultimate goal is to raise awareness of the brand, company, product or a person online while driving traffic online, offline or both. Depending on the job, a social media manager is typically associated with brand building through Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, MySpace and corporate blogging.
We all know how important word of mouth is, and social networking is like word of mouth on steroids. As a business, it’s vital to tap into and join online conversations not only about your brand, but also those about your competitors, your industry and your areas of expertise.
Even if you haven’t launched an outbound social media strategy, it helps to keep a pulse on what people are saying — good or bad — about your company, competitors and major trends. And, by representing your company in a positive, authentic way, you can build credibility for your expertise and business and link to customers and prospects quickly. You can also help mitigate damage should negative conversations about your company emerge by quickly responding to complaints.
Also, contrary to popular belief social media management is not only about management but also writing and analyzing. It is an amalgamation of journalism and advertizing. It offers a career in creating content in multiple places, such as a blog, Twitter, a Facebook page, etc.; monitor and scan the views, decide what comments to approve, and respond to replies on these sites, scanning Twitter followers for conversations you may want to join, or checking your RSS reader subscriptions for relevant articles and new ideas. Checking Google Alerts to see when and where your business is mentioned on the Web and creating and monitoring a community and topics on a site such as Facebook or LinkedIn
However, social media management in India is still at a nascent stage and not many colleges or institutes offer it as a course. Having said that, there is a lot to explore in this sector and understanding social media at the root level is enough to kick start your career. A lot has to be learned and figured out on the job. Getting internships at a digital advertizing firm or an online news publication is the best place to start if someone is interested in a career in social media management. Nirali Hingwala, the Content Head at SocialSamosa.com, a website catering to Indian Social media news says, “Initially Social Media Management doesn’t pay off well, because its still evolving, there is lack of good talent in this field with no proper training as the discipline is still not taught in the Indian universities. There are only private courses.”
It’s a great time to break into a social media career. The importance of social media is becoming clear to more companies every day. This means social media managers are in high demand and the market is wide open.
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