SMM manager: description of the profession, responsibilities and necessary skills

Nowadays, professions related to Internet marketing are becoming more and more popular. The development of social networks has brought SMM managers to the fore.

What this specialist does, what professional knowledge and skills he should have, and what are the prospects for development in the profession, we will talk in our review.

SMM stands for Social Media Marketing, which translates to "social media marketing".

Nowadays, many companies have their offices in social networks. This is not surprising, because this is where their potential clients spend a lot of time. The time for communication in chats and forums has long passed, stagnating in narrow niches by inertia. That is why there is a demand in the labor market for professionals who can communicate with subscribers in the same language. Thanks to this, it becomes possible to promote the brand, increase awareness and increase sales.

SMM managers supervise the activity of the client's company in social communities, they are responsible for moderating groups, communicating with the target audience... These specialists are responsible for publishing text posts, video and audio content, and organizing affiliate marketing with other brands.

An SMM manager should be well versed in all the intricacies of brand representations on different sites, know how the features of promotion on Instagram, Odnoklassniki, VKontakte and messengers differ. Content manager skills are important to them, but personal qualities such as a good sense of humor are equally important.

It is important for a social media specialist to be able to prioritize, understand which comments need to be deleted, and which ones should be left and which ones to respond to. Social Media Promotion Specialist must always stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies.

An SMM manager can be involved in several areas of activity.

• Group administrator. This employee fully supervises the content in the public of his clients. Admins are universal workers, the so-called jack of all trades: copywriters, designers, and internet marketers. They organize contests and prize draws with community members, advertise their community in other public places. Also, the administrator's tasks include tracking comments and blocking bots and spammers.
• Moderators... These are administrative assistants. As a rule, they perform routine work and are used in the role of “catch-up” workers. Usually their responsibilities include publishing posts prepared in advance by the administrator, as well as responding to comments.
• Owners of their own public. These specialists administer and promote their business and their personal page. In fact, they do everything the same as regular SMM managers, but at the same time they work for themselves.
• SMM managers of a high category. Usually, these professionals are simultaneously leading several projects of large companies. Often these people are known better than business owners. They fully represent the company in social networks and are the real soul of the public.

The overwhelming majority of representatives of this profession are employed in the freelancing system, and this provides many advantages.

• Free work schedule. The SMM manager himself plans his working hours and decides for himself at what time and how long he does business.
• Ability to work from anywhere in the world... In order to fulfill their functional duties, a specialist only needs a laptop and the Internet.
• Good income... There is no upper bound for income in this profession. Everything here fully depends on the amount of work, everything is simple: you work a lot - you earn a lot and, accordingly, vice versa.
• It's pretty interesting. There is no place for boredom in SMM, here everyone is in a constant asset, communicating with bright personalities, thanks to this, opportunities for creative self-expression and manifestation of creativity open up.

But there are also disadvantages.

• Irregular earnings. These specialists are periodically faced with a lack of order. Interruptions in work are not uncommon for them, especially when it comes to people without a well-known name.
• Stress... They are inevitable when dealing with people. Even on social networks, when there are no personal contacts, a lot of negativity falls on the shoulders of the group administrator or moderator, and there is no escape from him, since you need to take part in any discussion, and respond to every negative comment.
• Lack of social guarantees... In most cases, freelancers work without formal registration, so they have no health insurance or pension contributions.

There are certain responsibilities that need to be performed during the work process.

• Drawing up and maintaining a content plan. This is a list of topics for posts for the future period.As a rule, it is drawn up several weeks in advance, but during the course of the group, it may be subject to some adjustment, depending on which posts are welcomed by subscribers and which do not give a response.
• Organization of feedback. This function consists in responding to user comments, working with objections and working out negativity. The SMM manager must monitor compliance with the established public rules, delete posts and comments that are prohibited by company policy.
• Interaction with other publics... In order to promote, any groups from time to time exchange advertising posts with representatives of other communities or place their advertisements in public pages with a large potential audience.
• Working with influencers... It includes the conclusion of agreements with well-known bloggers and media characters for the purpose of promoting their group on their sites. For this, interesting commercial offers are drawn up.
• Keeping the group active. To do this, administrators conduct contests, as well as quests, polls and giveaways, rewarding their most active subscribers.
• Organization of offline events. A good result for promotion in some areas is given by conducting flash mobs and non-virtual meetings.
• Targeting... Here you should identify posts that are suitable for the target, then analyze their performance and select the potential audience reach.
• Budget planning... An experienced professional should calculate in advance the budget for advertising, the cost of participating in competitions and all kinds of activities. He must clearly understand the principle of cost recovery for maintaining a public.
• Writing posts. A competent specialist should be able to independently write texts for publication in a group, while he should clearly understand the difference between commercial and entertainment posts, apply geolocation, hashtags and other methods of increasing coverage.

In order to qualify for consistently high earnings, an SMM specialist must have a whole range of competencies and personal qualities.

In order to make money on social networks, certain skills will come in handy.

1. Ability to design the group in such a way that it attracts the audience. To do this, it is not enough to understand graphic editors, here you need to know and understand the psychology of people. If you feel your audience well, then even the most ordinary photos with catchy text will be no less effective than the most intense and cool designs.
2. Knowledge of the techniques for setting up public pages and groups, including secret ones, will allow you to confidently outflank your competitors. Many are content with only those tools that lie on the surface, and this is a big mistake, all technical innovations need to be tracked in a timely manner.
3. Skills of writing texts and composing video content. It is important that the posts are liked by people, because they make users return to the group again and again. However, it is important here that the entertainment component does not lead down the commercial side.
4. Ability to work with objections... You will probably have to communicate a lot in discussions, work with negativity, make commercial offers and negotiate link exchanges.
5. Ability to attract subscribers: Know paid and budget-free promotion methods. However, keep in mind that it is important to attract only potential buyers and customers to the groups, and not just anyone, since the goal of any activity is brand promotion.

In order to start engaging in leading groups and publics, a professional must have a whole range of personal qualities:

• creativity, out-of-the-box thinking;
• constant striving for personal and professional self-development;
• systems thinking;
• the ability to analyze large amounts of data;
• orientation towards achieving a positive result;
• increased self-motivation and self-organization;
• independence and independence in setting and performing tasks;
• excellent command of the native language and preferably English;
• the ability to express their thoughts outside the box.

To date, there is no possibility of obtaining higher education in the specialty of SMM-manager. However, if you have a university diploma with a degree in advertising or PR, this will be a significant advantage.

In order to enter the profession and master basic skills, are offered extramural training options.

Courses. They can be conducted offline and online. In order to get really useful information, it is better to give preference to trusted educational organizations that will teach you how to correctly select the target audience, select an effective platform for advertising a community, compose interesting content, and teach methods of promoting a public. Some of the most effective courses include classes from Netology and Geekbrains. These courses are designed for the practical use of knowledge and immersion in the profession from the very first day of training. Here, not only the necessary information is given out, but also tasks are proposed, the implementation of which is discussed with the curator.

If you do not want to spend money, then you can study at free webinars and courses, read books, thematic publics and watch videos on topics that interest you.

We offer you an up-to-date selection of useful books:

• Evgenia Kryukova, Denis Savelyev. "100+ hacks for internet marketers"
• Alexey Ivan "How to come up with an idea if you are not Ogilvy"
• Barbara Sher "Your Dream Job".

Among the YouTube channels, SMMplanner can be distinguished - it provides all the necessary information about news in the world of social media, new cases and trends.

The range of salaries for an SMM manager in Russia is large, in many respects they are determined by the manager's level of competence, brand awareness and responsibilities. The range varies from 5 to 100 thousand rubles, but the average spread is 20-50 thousand. In Moscow, these figures are slightly higher - from 40 to 130 thousand.

In freelancing, these specialists can receive any amount: both very scanty and very significant, depending on the degree of their workload.

In order to become an SMM manager from scratch, you need to perform several steps.

To start choose one of the social networks in which you feel like a fish in water, and focus on it... At first, you should not be scattered, it can be difficult for beginners to disperse their efforts simultaneously on several networks, especially if they have different principles of impact on the public. For example, on VKontakte, texts are of great importance, while on Instagram, images come to the fore.

Necessarily design your own page correctly. When you offer your services to potential customers, they will certainly go to your profile before deciding to hire you. It will be completely superfluous for them to know what level you have reached in a new computer game or how much fun you had with your friends over the weekend. Your page should be designed in a business style to reflect your professional interests... It will be useful to collect materials on the wall about marketing, new chips of online promotion and advertising.

Create an attractive business proposal and send it to your first potential customer. You should not immediately chase high incomes, perhaps it makes sense to work for a while for free, and then confirm the experience and competencies with your successful case and good reviews.... With such a set in your arsenal, you will already dictate your conditions to your customers.

As such, there is no career growth in the specialty, but there are prospects for the growth of financialYou can use one of the following strategies to attract customers.

• Direct sales in the forehead. Everything is simple here: you need to place a commercial offer with an indication of the cost of services, a promotion and a time limit. For example, pin the corresponding post on your page or create a status on the social network - in a word, use any place where the ad can be seen by a potential customer. For an appeal to be successful, it must meet the following criteria:
  • be understandable that is, the information should be interpreted in only one way without any discrepancies;
  • have an attractive price, the offer should be perceived as very profitable, but at the same time limited in time, the customer must decide as quickly as possible whether to agree to it or not.
• Selling in two steps. This mechanism works as follows: first, you offer customers something very cheap, or even free, for example, test ad setup, public audit or group design development. And at the second stage, you already make a more complete proposal. This is an effective way, since the customer has already seen you in action and if he is satisfied, then he will have no reason to refuse your services, except that there is no budget for promotion.
• Content Sales... This is where your own group will help you. The customer will get acquainted with the materials you have proposed and will make an initial opinion about your professionalism.