How to Become a Social Media Marketer

Developing Basic Skills

Focus on three main social media platforms. Though the opposite may seem true, specializing in one or two specific platforms is better than generalizing in many different ones. The three most important platforms for advertising are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Social media platforms are frequently changed, causing once effective marketing techniques to be less useful. Staying updated on many platforms will be much more difficult than a focused one or two. Stay abreast of updates by subscribing to media marketing blogs or signing up for platform newsletters, like Facebook’s Marketing Partner Weekly Update. Look up online resources to learn marketing techniques for your chosen platform(s). Many social media marketing gurus offer advice on their YouTube channels or Facebook pages. What works and what doesn’t depends on your industry, platform, and target audience. It is important to constantly test different kinds of posts to stay ahead of the competition.

Research your customer base. Different industries will require different marketing strategies. You'll need to choose the industry you'll become a marketer in, like technology, fashion, or automotive. Choose one in which you have an interest and a passion, so you can deliver knowledge and keep you interested. Look at the forums on major company websites in your industry. What are people talking about? Use these conversations to learn about your customer base. Create a Reddit account and subscribe to subreddits in your industry to identify and monitor relevant topics to your customer base. Research doesn’t have to be boring! Make color-coded spreadsheets with Google Spreadsheets or Excel to list topic areas in your industry. Use this list to improve variety of your posts.

Observe the marketing strategies of successful companies. Follow several companies you admire and follow them on your chosen media platform(s). Take notes on their marketing techniques. Ask yourself, “How could I duplicate this? What would I do differently? How would I use this to promote a product?” Ask yourself without hesitation – talking to yourself is completely normal. Bookmark or screenshot your favorite advertising campaigns from the companies you follow. Look to these for inspiration in your own advertising. Set up an RSS feed to follow advertising related news from websites like AdAge, PSFK, Creativity Magazine, and eMarketer.

Train yourself to post and update regularly. Even if it’s only your Facebook status, get used to making frequent updates. When you’re feeling tired, push through to victory and maintain a steady stream of posts. Hang in there! The more you practice, the easier it’ll become. If readers feel like you’re spamming them with useless promotion, they’ll likely unfollow or block you. Keep posts relevant and useful. Avoid repetition to keep your writing fresh and interesting.

Intern or volunteer to build experience. As a volunteer or intern, much like a secret agent, you’ll learn marketing techniques from experts by watching them in action. Take mental note, secret agent, of effective techniques and miserable failures. Save time in your own marketing efforts by avoiding techniques that look good on paper, but don’t work in reality. Contact a local charity, politician, school, or business and express your interest in volunteering your services to their social media marketing department. Write a personal blog covering topics in your chosen industry to build your presence and reputation. Get some experience writing a weekly blog for a local business.

Building a Professional Network

Join social groups in your industry. Some social networking sites, like Meetup or Sprout Social, can put you in touch with individuals interested in the industry in which you’ll be marketing. Develop relationships with these people. Let them know how you might help them and vice versa. They may be invaluable in the future. Share some of your recent projects with people in your chosen industry along with future projects you hope to work on. This is a subtle way of indicating specific areas of expertise and interest to others. Search online for professional mixers, expos, and organizations, like the New York Social Media Club or the New Media Expo. Attend these events and exchange your contact information with other attendees.

Cultivate your online presence. Join conversations topical to your industry on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Grow your own Twitter and Facebook following. Use the help of press release agencies to get your social media account on news sites that millions of people read. If you have a large following, you’ll be more desirable to potential employers. Drive up community engagement on your Facebook page by sharing relevant posts from other organizations in your industry or groundbreaking research. Reach out to notable users in your industry on Twitter by tweeting to them directly with an @ symbol followed by a user’s name. The same can be done on Facebook by linking other users to posts. Grab the attention of online users by responding to posts. Don’t be afraid to respectfully take a stance or voice your opinion on issues.

Develop meaningful relationships with other marketers. Your week is likely busy. It’s hard to make time to keep valuable professional relationships alive. Why not set aside a single hour each week to go through your client list? Get in touch with contacts by phone. Keep the conversation short, but personal, by saying something like, “I’m a little busy today, but I wanted to call and see how you were doing.” Similar to phone conversations, connect with contacts through email. Use a simple template and add a few personal comments to make the message more organic.

Collaborate with other social media marketers. Building your marketing life can be stressful, but as the saying goes, “Many hands make for light labor.” After making professional connections, reach out and suggest working on a personal project, like marketing for an event or professional organization you’re involved with, together with fellow media marketers. Make up for weak areas in your social media marketing skillset by bringing in a partner who’s good at what you’re not. To reach out to others, you might say, “I’ve got Twitter under control, but I think handling it and Facebook would be overwhelming. How about we work together and you manage Facebook?” As an added bonus (and who doesn’t love bonuses?), your project will have increased engagement from fellow collaborators’ online followings.

Landing a Job

Collect data and testimonials to prove your skills. Use analytic tools, like Google Analytics, Datahero, or Yahoo Web Analytics, to track your media engagement. Make use of platform analytic tools, like the “Insights” tab on Facebook business pages. Pay specific attention to how you positively impacted growth, savings, and time. Keep track of analytics in a spreadsheet. Employers regard numerical proof of your skills highly. Instead of making broad statements, say things like, “I was able to increase unique views by 250% in three months.” Honesty is the best policy when applying with companies. You may be asked to back up your data. If you can't because you fudged the numbers, it could hurt your reputation.

Put together a portfolio. Collect samples of your best work. Write a table of contents for these samples and follow it with a short introduction that tells a little bit about yourself, your goals, and the included samples. Demonstrate your range of ability with samples from different projects. Some of the most useful portfolio samples include things like integrated marketing campaigns, new ideas, and particularly effective campaigns. A digital portfolio can be uploaded to your professional website or a platform page, like LinkedIn and Facebook. It’ll show preparedness if you have a hardcopy of your portfolio at interviews. Print materials on quality paper and insert them into a professional binder.

Protect your online image. The phrase, “loose lips sink ships,” is especially applicable to protecting your online image. Posting something inappropriate accidentally or in an emotional moment could lose you followers and hurt your prestige in your online community. Contemplate posts carefully before publishing them. To protect yourself from accidentally posting something inappropriate, run your content by a friend, coworker, or supervisor before publishing it online. When you’re feeling emotional, give yourself some time to calm down. If you’re ever on the fence about a post, give yourself a day or two to think it over. Consistency is an important key for locking down your image. Inconsistently posting or publishing dubious content could make you seem unreliable.

Write a unique resume. Applying for a job is basically marketing yourself, right? So you’ll want to put your best foot forward with a unique, thoughtful resume. Display your design skills with a simple, pertinent graphic or two. Include links to your personal and professional social media pages. Showcase your knowledge of what clients want and how to promote it. Visual techniques, like the use of photos and memes, are an eye-catching way of promoting products and services. Employers will want to see evidence of your ability to include visual elements in your work.

Apply for jobs. Look for social media marketing position with major marketing agencies. Make use of job aggregating websites, like Indeed, LinkedUp, and Monster, to broaden your search. Peruse classified ads for marketing positions in print newspapers and on sites like Craigslist.