Profession SMM manager: who is he and how to succeed in Internet promotion. Who is an SMM marketer

Hello, friends! Rimma Belyakina is in touch with you. We continue to get acquainted with the possibilities of transferring our “military labor” from offline to online space. Today we will analyze in detail who an SMM manager is, talk about the features of this Internet profession, learn how to become one and start earning remotely.

About that, I wrote in my last article. Let's now get to know the main character of this process - the SMM manager: the lord of social networks, the manager of the social media market.

Even babies are now friends with the Internet. The concept of “remote work” covers an increasing range of offline professions moving to the Internet. And if not everyone, then almost everyone heard about the not newfangled, but no less demanded profession of an SMM manager.

But here’s who it is and what it does or how it differs from, for example, an Internet marketer or content manager, and whether it’s different, or is it the same thing, not everyone can immediately answer.

I will tell you a “terrible” secret: many have heard about this profession, but no one in the general population really knows what kind of specialty it is and what an SMM manager does. Ask this question to 100 different people, you will get 100 different answers. Even far from every employer can cope with the task of determining the scope of duties of this specialist.

Some, however, have an idea of ​​him as a specialist in creating groups, attracting subscribers and winding up likes. Is it really? Let's try to figure it out together.

Who is an SMM manager

We spend more and more time not in real life, as before, but on social networks: there we communicate, watch movies, study, and shop. And it's no secret to anyone that you can also earn money there. After all, as you know, demand creates supply. Social networks give us simply unlimited possibilities.

Have you ever wondered how these opportunities appear, who is behind all this? And behind all this is an SMM manager, a specialist in promotion in social networks. In other interpretations - a sms manager, a content manager, a digital specialist and even an Internet marketer, although this is not entirely correct. And all this is a person whose priority tasks are to promote websites, goods or services of the company through social platforms.

An SMM manager is a specialist in promoting goods and services, building a company brand on the Internet through a set of events held in social networks, blogs, forums and other media.

Today, every self-respecting company has its own account in social networks. Banks, educational institutions, television channels, museums, all trade organizations have their own official pages in the Internet. And they all need a promotion specialist. So the ever-growing popularity of this profession can be envied.

What is he responsible for?

Who is an SMM manager, I think we figured it out. Let's now decide what he will have to face in the course of his professional activities, and what he will be responsible for.

If we look at the meaning of the English word “manager”, we learn that this is a specialist responsible for managing the work process in the area entrusted to him. In this case, the site is understood as a social media platform, and the workflow is aimed at increasing the number of audience interested in the client's product or service.

Whatever tasks the client sets for the SMS specialist: branding the company, forming the company's image, sales, etc., the work is mainly carried out in two directions:

1. Attracting traffic (increasing the number of subscribers).
2. Working with the audience (creating content to maintain interest, communication).

In addition to solving problems, the smmschik will have to perform a number of duties.

Responsibilities of the SMS

Here is how, for example, the research center of the SuperJob portal describes job responsibilities.

The requirements of employers for SMM specialists may differ depending on the company. Here is one of the ads for the vacancy of an SMM manager.

Not a weak list, is it? So, if you decide to become a pro in this area, then get ready for the fact that you will have to combine skills:

• content manager,
• copywriter
• web designer,
• PR specialist
• marketer,
• advertiser.

Yes, “this is not an easy job…” It will take a lot of effort to set up the work, to make it efficient and effective. We need a smart approach and organization. Let's now see how the working day of an SMM manager goes.

His work day

Each person, by virtue of his activity and personal qualities, builds a daily routine in his own way. The working day of an SMM specialist is quite intense, I must say. Judge for yourself. During the day, the SMS worker needs:

1. Monitor client accounts (work with comments, messages, eliminate spam, check user publications, reposts on client pages).
2. Study statistics on reposts, likes, publications, increase in subscribers, work with hashtags.
3. Set up targeted advertising to attract the target audience.
4. Work with colleagues: copywriters, designers, technical staff, if any in the state, as separate units; in the absence of such, all the work on the selection and placement of content will have to be done by yourself.
5. Conduct meetings/negotiations in Skype or other programs.
6. Make reports for the past period (work with data from analytics services).
7. Make a content plan for the next period.

Life hack from the “experienced”: all the work that needs to be done today must be done “yesterday”. Learn to use delayed posting services like SmmBox and you will make your life much easier.

Important qualities without which you cannot become an SMM pro

From all of the above, it is clear that you cannot become an SMM manager out of the blue. Knowledge, special skills and certain personal qualities are needed. What can a manager of a social media market definitely not do without? What should it be? What skills and abilities will be required of him?

1. Communication first and foremost. He must be able to communicate with the target audience, engage and captivate, in order to reach the ultimate goal - the sale of a product or service.
2. Understanding the concept of working with social networks, the ability to select the target audience, social platforms for the sale of goods.
3. Ability to think systematically: engage in strategic planning.
4. Ability to target ads.
5. Knowledge graphic editors and ability to work with them.
6. Ability to work with the main tool - content. Here you will need the basics of copywriting and a good knowledge of the Russian language. And knowledge of a foreign language is also a big fat plus in the treasury of knowledge, skills and abilities.
7. Such personal qualities as organization, creativity, analytical mindset, healthy sense of humor, active life position.
8. Desire to improve and achieve goals.

Ideally, of course, to have and combine all these features. But the ideal is an ephemeral concept. However, no one canceled the desire to strive for it.

Why do you need this profession

And really, why? Will it suit you? Is it possible, in general, to learn all this and how to calculate your capabilities? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this job? Where to start and where to look for work? And how much do they pay for it? Surely, all these questions arose in the head of every person who wants to try their hand at SMM promotion. Let's look at these questions.

Advantages and disadvantages

So, what are the pros and cons of SMM promotion?

• Demand. Even a crisis and general layoffs will not prevent a good smmschik from finding a job. The demand for a competent SMM specialist is growing steadily. Go to any resource for vacancies and you will see for yourself.
• Activity social networks develops with enviable constancy. The population, from small to large, has 3 - 4 accounts on the network, and therefore it will not be difficult to find your target audience even for a specialist without work experience.
• Advertising on social networks is easier and more profitable. Promotions are relatively inexpensive.
• The effect of viral marketing (likes and reposts) works with a bang, attracting more and more subscribers, and therefore, potential customers.
• Useful content, communication with users of social networks and feedback help to form a positive opinion about the company and increase the client base.
• You can work both in the office and remotely. With the second option, this is also a flexible schedule, and “my own boss - when I want to eat, when I want to sleep.”

• A large amount of work with the mandatory preparation of analyzes, reports, monitoring.
• Often an irregular working day in front of a computer monitor with health consequences (problems with vision, spine may appear). Skillful use of SMM tools, however, compensates for this.
• Until now, many employers do not have a complete understanding of the competencies of SMM management and the activities of a specialist in this area, which can lead to disagreements on wages.

Perhaps these are all cons. And if you put them on the scales, it is obvious that the pluses will show a significant advantage. So, you can already answer why you should engage in SMM promotion.

In addition, it is quite an exciting and dynamic process. You will definitely like it if you are an extrovert. There are some in my area. At first, like me, they learned copywriting, then they very quickly left for SMM, because they attracted a more active, “live” format of activity.

The salary

How much does a manager earn? Pretty decent. The average salary in the country is 33,000 rubles. But, of course, the plus / minus depends on the region, the specifics of the company, agency, the competence of the specialist, the volume of tasks and requirements assigned to him.

Here detailed information in major cities of Russia. The statistics are presented by the research center of the SuperJob portal.

Salary is another good incentive to think about the prospects of the SMM profession. By showing initiative and gaining experience in SMM promotion, you can reach the level of 100,000 rubles.

Career

Prospects for the profession are tempting in terms of career growth. Purposeful and pragmatic, in particular, young people can “reach the rank of general” in SMM promotion: take a leading position in some Internet project, take a leadership position in a company, establish their own Internet agency, provide consulting services (which is very expensive) or run training courses.

How and where to learn SMM

Education can be obtained both at higher educational institutions at the socio-economic faculties of marketing, advertising and PR, and at specialized offline, online courses and trainings.

I will highlight the best:

• Course "from the ConvertMonster project.
• A three-month course "SMM manager" from the online university Netology.
• Course "SMM-manager" from the Geekbrains portal and Mail.ru company.

I plan to cover the topic of SMM training in detail in a future article.

You can learn on your own by trial and error. Many come into this profession from the starting position of the moderator of one group of some social network. But this is a rather long way, on which you will have to attend numerous trainings, webinars, conferences, and read a lot of literature. The choice is yours.

Where to find a job

Those wishing to find a job with official employment should first of all search on sites for vacancies, such as:

• avito.ru,
• superjob.ru,
• hh.ru,
• rabota.ru, etc.

Freelancers should also look at fl.ru, look for offers on thematic publics, forums and social media sites. Often there you can find good suggestions for maintaining groups, publics, blogs.

And it's better to start small. Working as a social media assistant will allow you to develop the necessary skills, gain enough experience, create a cool portfolio of projects and become a professional that employers will chase after.

Conclusion

Now you know who an SMM manager is, what he does and what you need to do to become one. If you seriously decide to devote yourself to SMM promotion, you should work on creating a full-fledged resume, where you need to include all your knowledge, skills and abilities that are useful for this profession. A created real portfolio with projects that you have supervised is your carte blanche to your dream profession.

Joy of knowledge to you and bright projects!

Hello my dear readers! Rimma Belyakina is with you. On the pages of the blog site, we talk about remote work and the opportunities that it provides. Internet technologies are no longer even the future, this is a confident present.

More diligent and enterprising businessmen began to think about introducing business into the Internet space and attracting consumers to their goods or services in social networks.

Do you think about it too? Looking for ways to sell your product? Then you definitely need to know what SMM is and how it works. This is what we will look at in more detail in this article. We will also talk about what tasks can be solved with the help of SMM, about its advantages and how to learn SMM promotion.

Much has been written about the role of social networks in our lives. And if you put it all together, you probably would get a sickly ledger, a treatise on how 70-80% of all mankind spend their second, parallel to real, virtual life in them.

And if we associate social networks with life, albeit virtual, we mean, if not all, then many important aspects of this very life: hobbies and entertainment, education and work, purchases and sales. That is, everything that we previously had only in real life has now smoothly migrated to the virtual.

SMM: deciphering the abbreviation and parsing the essence

What does SMM mean? It is also called social marketing or online marketing. This concept came into our everyday life from the English language (“Social Media Marketing” literally means “marketing in social networks”) and is a process of attracting interest to any Internet resource through social platforms.

In other words, this is a mechanism for attracting traffic, that is, the flow of visitors (they are also potential consumers) to a brand, service or product through social networks.

If it’s even simpler: you are a businessman (real or conditional), you want to do business on the Internet, choose a social platform for this, go there with your product, define your target audience and offer your product to them in various ways.

And if you want to succeed in Internet entrepreneurship, you definitely need to be present on a social platform, take part in communication with users of this social network and select interesting, useful and constantly changing content on the topic of your product so that interest in it does not disappear. This is the whole "salt", it is the essence of SMM promotion.

Tasks of SMM management

It is clear that SMM is not done by itself, there is a person behind this process. They call him differently: a smmschik, an SMM manager, an SMM specialist, an Internet marketer. The essence of this does not change, and the tasks are the same in any case:

1. Decide on the target audience and study their interests.
2. Conduct a niche analysis: on which platform it is better to promote the brand, in what ways and tools.
3. To achieve an increase in the number of audience through a set of events, which includes advertising, promotions, contests, sweepstakes.
4. Work on creating the image of the company: conduct a PR campaign, track feedback to eliminate the negative.
5. Monitor the promotion process: analysis of statistics, dynamics.

I have listed only the main tasks of SMM management, but, as you understand, this is not the whole list, because each company pursues its own interests and sets its own tasks.

SMM in action: stages of promotion

SMM promotion is not an easy job, carried out in several stages:

1. Choosing a platform for your target audience. Why might this be important? Because there are already quite a lot of social networks, and each has its own contingent. As a result, they have different interests.
2. Placement of the communication platform. Having decided on the social network, it is important to think over the place where the audience gathers for communication. What could it be? A specially created group, or community, or public, or your account. The main thing is not this, but that this platform constantly works, gives the audience “bread and circuses”, that is, the content it needs. And this is the next stage.
3. Creation and placement of content. It should be not only interesting and useful, but also viral, that is, one that is liked and shared. To quickly promote your public, you need to invest money and run ads.
4. Making a profit or monetizing the project. The most difficult and ambiguous stage, since the main goal of the SMS manager is to ensure that the bulk of subscribers are transferred to the customer's website and made them consumers. Here, whoever is lucky. There are various cases of monetization, both successful and exactly the opposite: you can achieve good earnings and on a group with a number of subscribers of 3-5 thousand, or you can receive “mere pennies” from groups of “hundred-thousanders”.

Here, perhaps, it would be useful to recall the development of the right strategy and tactics for the successful implementation of the project. And also about the fact that in every case, in addition to the plan, you need your own mechanisms and tools.

SMM tools

This paragraph of the article will be the shortest, because I have already written about Internet marketing tools and I don’t want to repeat myself. You can read about it in my previous article about . There, by the way, you can watch a video with a detailed analysis of all SMM tools and find out how it all works.

I also advise you to refer to another of my earlier articles "", where you can learn a lot useful information and even life hacks on this topic. Don't hesitate to do it. After all, your success will depend on how effectively you own SMM tools.

Pros and cons of SMM

Every industry has its pros and cons, and before you start any business, you need to weigh the pros and cons. Let's now consider what priorities social marketing gives and whether it is worth doing it at all.

So, here are the advantages that social marketing gurus put forward in the first positions:

1. Demand. The demand for SMM services is steadily growing.
2. Freelance work. Having understood IT technologies and having mastered SMM mechanisms, you will be able not to “steam” in the office. Many people prefer to work from home.
3. Creative path. The opportunity to show all your hidden talents.
4. A huge audience of potential customers: after all, social networks have millions of users.
5. Minimum costs at the start and high payback after promotion.
6. A solid reward for quality promotion services. The minimum cost of one SMM project is from 30,000 rubles.

What about disadvantages? I would prefer to call them the difficulties that will have to be faced in the course of the work. And first of all this:

1. Selection of content that advantageously illustrates the promoted product. It takes a rich imagination, inherent in the few, and a considerable amount of time to find the right material and design it.
2. Advertising work. Without investment, most likely, you can not do. You will have to spend money on advertising the product, and this will still need to be learned.
3. Competition. Business is taking a firm step into the Internet. That's where the competition comes in.

How to become an SMM specialist?

Since the specialty in question would be most correctly described not as a narrowly focused, but rather as a broad-based one, a lot of knowledge and skills that a smmsman should have are required.

What knowledge and skills should a SMMS have?

It is clear that he must know the basics of marketing in the first place, but also:

• understand information technology
• know the tools of media automation and be able to use them,
• know the features of community management,
• have analytical skills
• understand and be able to use targeted and other types of advertising,
• have communication skills
• be able to establish contacts and interest,
• be creative: be able to create captivating viral content,
• be able to develop and put into practice strategies to attract an audience from social networks to the customer's website.

Important qualities are self-organization and self-discipline. If a specialist needs a kick from the boss, then this is a bad specialist. However, excessive initiative is also unnecessary. She, as you know, can be "punished." It is important here to “find the golden mean” so as not to “burn out”.

Where can you learn this?

Social marketing can be learned in specialized online schools or in courses, of which there are plenty on the Internet. In a separate article, we have compiled for you a selection and review of the best SMM courses.

Of these, we can highlight the TOP 3 of the best:

• Course from the ConvertMonster project.
• Three-month course "SMM manager" from the online university Netology.
• Course "SMM-manager" from the Geekbrains portal and Mail.ru company.

As you can see, there are options, there are many of them, because progress does not stand still. Those wishing to study science can only “roll up their sleeves” and get down to business. Well, when you “grind your teeth on this granite”, you will find something to your liking in the online space in the same way and without difficulty, since this business is modern, relevant, and profitable.

Summing up

So, we have considered what SMM is. I have tried to make the material as simple as possible. I hope it was clear.

Summarizing all of the above, we can draw a simple conclusion: SMM is in trend today. This is a difficult but effective way to manage the turnover and relationships in the network. This is a diverse and promising work that will suit energetic, pragmatic, natures that keep pace with the times.

In the next article, we will analyze the profession of an SMM manager in more detail. Keep for updates.

I want to believe and know that the article turned out to be useful and helped in some way. One way or another, I look forward to your feedback, comments, suggestions. Let's discuss. For now, for now. And see you again.

Daria Golovanova

Reading time: 14 min.

Perhaps the fastest growing profession on the Internet in recent years is an SMM manager. She has already managed to acquire various stories, misunderstandings and myths, such as the fact that this is a job for schoolchildren, etc. It seems to us that it is time to start debunking them. Let's figure out what is meant in job descriptions, why an SMM manager is really needed, and how it should work.

What can be the duties of an ideal SMM manager?

The main responsibilities of the social media manager in the company may include:

• building a common strategy for brand presence in social networks;
• turning this strategy into reality;
• the ability to feel and understand the brand, to focus all actions on its target audience and communicate in its language
• reasonable budget management, management and analysis of advertising campaigns;
• the ability to take beautiful pictures. Even on the phone. A small business can no longer be imagined without a beautiful Instagram profile anywhere else, and ordering a lot of filming is not always the most budget option. That is why photo content often has to be implemented by the SMM manager;
• have a sense of beauty and be able to catch trends.
• competent written language, ability to write and correct text content;
• knowledge of at least the basics of layout and understanding of usability to optimize the site for social networks is very welcome;
• and, of course, the ability to work with people and the skills of a psychologist are very important;
• and etc.

Ksenia Prokina, Editorial Group Head Sociorama by iConGroup:

“Today, often, different employers determine in their own way who an SMM manager is in his company, and what exactly he should do. At interviews, the conversation often begins like this: "Let's decide what we mean by this word." So, one employer sees an employee in this place, who, having decided on the goal, splits it into tasks, selects tools, briefs, controls, reports to the SMM director or head of the marketing department. And the other will indicate tasks such as: writing content, moderating communities, working in tandem with a designer, reporting. But he will not, for example, control the budget, select promotion tools, etc.

The fact is that it is unrealistic to cover the entire pool of tasks and do it by hand. We are now talking, of course, about real professionals, and not about schoolchildren or mothers on maternity leave, who were inspired by the opportunity to make money on the Internet. Therefore, ideally, tasks are divided into several employees by specialization, for example, I am responsible for content, moderation and design.

As you can see, the hands of a good CMM worker must grow bushy: he must be diversified and be ready to perform a wide range of work.

And now let's start debunking the myths that have taken root in our heads.

Myth 1. Work in social networks - for interns and students

Social media marketing is one of the necessary tasks for the development of a business of any scale. If you think that this is some kind of childish task that any student can perform, then you can put an end to your reputation. Incorrect positioning, low-quality content, misunderstanding of strategy and goals - all this will at best lead to a decrease in the number of subscribers, and at worst, it will negatively affect the attitude towards the brand and sales.

Myth 2. Social networks are the same job for 8 hours 5 days a week

Here is another common stereotype. Social media marketing is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day. In order for SMM marketing to have significant authority in social networks, you need to be online all the time. This means that you should be able to use various planning tools, ideally - be able to answer questions from potential buyers at any time of the day or night (after all, if the Internet never sleeps).

Myth 3. You will not achieve effective and measurable results from an SMM marketer.

Today it is also not impossible to measure the result and effectiveness of work in SMM. There are several options to track the result of the work of the SMM manager:

• Pay attention to reach, user engagement, conversion of paid traffic to social. And don't forget to track ROI - an indicator of return on investment for SMM.
• Track the growth of ER - the engagement index.
• Analyze the place of SMM in assisted conversions. Thus, you can evaluate the payback of the employee.

Myth 4. All work is just asking friends and acquaintances to like posts to increase the level of social presence.

Experienced social media people won't ask friends and family to like their posts all the time. They know full well that they will not be able to fool the program that calculates the activity coefficient. It is a little more complicated than users are used to thinking. That's why it's so important to work on creative posts and interact large quantity audience.

Myth 5: We don't need

Social media is not suitable for our industry.” A lot of people talk like that. In our courses, one of the most common questions is what should we write about, because we are from B2B. Especially B2B manufacturing companies such as construction, industry, etc.

However, while they and their B2B partners do not understand how to implement social media, their employees are still socially active people, and they also like to surf the net, watch news on interesting topics, including their professional orientation. Look around: from kids to grandparents, everyone is on social media these days.

A common mistake B2B companies make is to treat their customers as just other companies and not as the people who work for them, who are just as socially accessible as everyone else.

In principle, this is possible. But only if there is a unique product and with initially perfectly designed marketing.

Myth 6. The demand for SMM specialists has already formed

As we can see from the graph, the demand for SMM specialists began to increase significantly since January 2016, and the number of vacancies has almost doubled, as a result of which competition is also intensifying.

Myth 7. SMM should be cheap

Today there is a generally accepted opinion that it is quite possible to get by with small budgets at the initial stage of SMM promotion. Of course, SMM services today do not have any fixed cost, and each company can put its own “price tag”.

But, when starting to work with SMM, it is extremely important to understand that a one-time action will give absolutely nothing to the business. SMM must be integrated into the marketing communications system for any type of business, and it is advisable to wait for the result only with regular work.

Of course, you can pay a specialist less, but in this case, you should not expect a predicted result, it can turn out to be zero. Many employers continue to turn to freelancers who are ready to “make SMM for $200”, but after 1-2 months of wasted time, money and nerves, they turn to professionals for help.

Therefore, if you are really ready to spend some money one-time, it’s better to go through a good SMM intensive in order to understand the big picture, and what your SMM manager should be directly involved in. Such a course will give you a clear understanding of where, for what and with what efficiency your budgets and paid "man-hours" will go.

Myth 8. It is not necessary for an SMM manager to have a lot of subscribers himself?

Probably yes. But not just bots. Agree, it’s very undignified when a person has 4,000 friends, and on his wall there are cats slammed by his mother.

If you decide to communicate through the personal page of the manager, then it can become another channel of communication with clients. In addition to posting, he can ideally become an opinion leader, able to tell your customers everything about the company, products, and in a friendly way. After all, if you love your project, you will not be ashamed to tell your friends about it, otherwise, you should not take it on.

However, there are many professional SMM people who, on the contrary, appear minimally on social networks. Maybe it's a social media addiction.

Most The right way communication with the client in this case - the formation of a separate working page. After all, many people want to tell everything honestly on their page, for example, about a brand. But in this case, the manager has no right to represent his company with such messages on the wall.

Myth 9. An SMM manager can do everything.

Very often, anything can be demanded from a smm manager - to count budgets and engage in promotion, and draw, and dance, etc. But as a rule, people who claim that they can do all this are definitely sagging in something.

It is important to decide what work can be done inhouse, and what can be entrusted simply to the control of the SMM manager. For example, write content within the brand, and promote with the help of a contractor. Or vice versa.

Of course, SMM is a complex topic. There are really big budgets here, something changes every day and something new is invented.

SMM managers, and not only - write your comments and additions in the comments, what stereotypes do you encounter in your work?

SMM stands for Social Media Marketing or social media marketing. An SMM specialist or an SMM manager promotes a company, its brand, goods and services on social networks - Vkontakte, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Odnoklassniki, Youtube, Telegram and others.

The profession of an SMM specialist involves complex, multi-purpose work - writing posts, maintaining publics, advertising, communicating with visitors and customers, launching activities for users, and other tasks. Such work requires constant communication and being online. You need to prepare mentally for this.

To better understand who an SMM specialist / manager is, I will describe how he looks from the outside:

Artem, my colleague "in the shop", did not work at his desk, but sat on the couch all the time. He had a laptop on his lap, an iPhone on the left, a notebook and a tablet on the coffee table. Constantly something beeped, buzzed and vibrated. He regularly picked up the phone, looked, laughed, poked and ran his finger across the screen and whispered something with his lips. Nobody called him, but they wrote and liked tons and he kept track of everything and reacted to everything.

Places of work

SMM managers work in Internet agencies, digital agencies and in companies that build sales and promotion through social networks.

Tasks and responsibilities of an SMM specialist

The main responsibilities of the SMM manager are as follows:

Requirements for an SMM specialist

As a rule, the SMM manager is required to:

• Competent speech (oral and written). Ability to write interesting texts.
• The ability to develop communities and attract subscribers without cheating and their direct purchase.
• Experience in targeted advertising. Knowledge of programs and services that automate and simplify work (for example, Cerebro Target or Pepper.ninja).
• Knowledge of web analytics (Google Analytics, Yandex.Metrica).

Sometimes the requirements for an SMM specialist include:

• Experience and portfolio of completed projects.
• Knowledge of graphic packages for photo processing, creating pictures and infographics.
• Excellent knowledge of English.
• Event organization experience.
• Knowledge of marketing and the ability to promote products and services in the market.

The first way to become an SMM manager is through self-learning and freelancing. The development of your publics and blogs (for example, about a hobby or an interesting topic), freelance work with entry-level orders in six months or a year will give you practical experience and allow you to develop a portfolio. This, in turn, will give a chance to get a job in a digital agency and grow to a professional. This is one of the shortest paths to the profession, but it requires self-discipline.

The second way to become an SMM specialist is to get a degree in PR, journalism, marketing or take courses in SMM and find a job in social media promotion. Even an entry-level position is suitable - an assistant SMM specialist or a copywriter. In the process, you can quickly gain experience, grow and start leading serious projects.

SMM specialist salary

Market analysis shows that SMM-specialists earn from about 30 to 90 thousand rubles a month. The higher the salary, the closer the SMM manager is to marketing and the more serious the tasks he solves.

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An SMM manager is a specialist who, his task is to draw people's attention to the promoted brand and convert them into customers.

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The main secrets of such an expert:

• Constantly learning.
• Knows the secret tricks of social media.
• He masterfully owns auxiliary tools to quickly and efficiently do his job.
• He knows how to correctly express his thoughts and your audience likes it.
• Tracks trends.
• Understands psychology.

SMM manager - who is it: functions, tasks

• You composed the text - topic, title, post content (1 hour).
• Then they looked for a photo (1.5 hours - for a long time they could not choose what they needed).
• We picked up hashtags (1 hour and only because we didn’t bother with it much).
• We came up with the design, because it is important to hook people.
• Post your masterpiece on social media.
• We were waiting for an explosion of likes, comments, reposts.

Not having received the desired reaction, you made a new publication without desire. And then another, and so on. Sometimes daily, sometimes every other day, sometimes once a week. But the subscribers did not increase, only you and your mother liked you, and sales from social networks began to seem something unreal, like unicorns or children.

You realized that you spend a lot of time on what is necessary, but you don’t like it (it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and in general, who invented it). And we decided to entrust this matter to a specialist.

What does an SMM manager do?

First, it saves you time, effort and nerves. This person understands how your potential customers behave on social networks, so he knows how to attract them. He learned how to do quality work. And it doesn’t matter if he went through trainings or filled bumps for years - he has more experience and knowledge than you.

He is not upset by the lack of likes in public, because he knows how to stir people up, set things in motion and shake up communication. Engage the audience in some kind of social process.

Secondly, it creates content and engages in dialogue with your potential customers. Thanks to this, the recognition of your brand and product grows, more people come to the site and get into the funnel. It also wins their trust for you.

Thirdly, he does everything professionally. Starting from the writing of the text, ending with the time of publication. He is aware of any changes on your page, he understands the trends, his actions give results. Even before the start, you should discuss your wishes, goals and methods with the SMM manager.

Fourth, he constantly analyzes his work and looks for ways to make it better. This is already a sign of a real pro who understands that his task is to bring money to the client.

For this, you pay him a salary, qualitatively delegating an important task, the implementation of which helps your business grow.

SMM manager: salary as the price of success

If we take the average, then the salary of an SMM specialist starts from 40,000 rubles. This is according to bulletin boards. But this figure can both decrease and increase depending on various factors:

• Region.
• Knowledge, experience, professional duties.
• Office or remote work.
• The level of "immersion" in the customer's business.

The greater the volume of work, the higher the salary of an SMM manager. It is worth considering the fact that the offer on the market from such applicants is very high. This gives employers an excuse to offer lower fees for services.

Therefore, it is important for a person who maintains social media accounts for companies to:

• Constantly improve.
• Find ways to get better results at a lower cost.
• In every possible way to show that in his person the employer receives more benefits than he pays for it.

Plus, when working remotely, you can take on more than one project, but several. Especially if you are a master of various tools that make your work easier.

What you need to know to become an SMM manager

At first glance, it may seem that there is nothing complicated in such work. But if you dig deeper, it turns out that a specialist in - a real universal soldier. He needs to understand:

1. The laws of social networks, because each of them has its own specifics and it must be taken into account.
2. Copywriting to prepare posts and engage the audience with them.
3. Work with image processing programs and create catchy pictures for posted publications.
4. Psychology, to know how to behave with subscribers and what they need to give in order to push them to a certain action.
5. Strategic planning and business processes, because he should understand where to move and what to broadcast.
6. Building and increasing brand awareness based on information about the company that is being promoted.
7. Analytics - to see what the numbers show, to know how to evaluate their dynamics and how to adjust the promotion strategy so that the indicators change for the better.

These are the necessary skills that will allow you to perform the duties of an SMM manager with high quality. But besides this, it is also important to be a literate, erudite person with a great sense of humor.

How to become an SMM manager

Although this profession is in high demand, there is no educational institution where you can learn it. Therefore, there are two ways to become an SMM specialist:

• Himself - it's free and long.
• Learn from those who have already achieved success in this area.

When mastering the right skills, focus on the following areas:

• Marketing.
• Web design basics.

It is important to understand:

• How people behave on the Internet.
• What drives them.
• How to get their attention.
• Why do they like, comment, repost, subscribe to pages.
• How to interest them and send them to the customer's website.

• Create accounts and for what purposes they are intended.
• Manage client pages: prepare posts, develop a promotion strategy, work with visual content, track the reaction of subscribers, read statistics.
• Conduct an audit of social networks to prescribe a strategy for further actions and improvement of performance.
• Run ads on selected sites and get the maximum result from it.
• Use content marketing to achieve your goals.

Keep evolving because social media is a very dynamic environment. Therefore, regularly read books, posts of opinion leaders (including foreign ones), go to training courses and just be in trend. Understand how everything works here in order to be able to convey your vision to the client, because he relies on you as a pro.

How does the work of an SMM manager begin?

When you dive into a new project as an SMM specialist, carefully study the information about the company or person you will be promoting. You must clearly understand:

• What exactly are you suggesting.
• What is its main feature.
• What problems does it solve.

• Become more popular.
• Gather a group of like-minded people in one place and bring up brand “fans”.
• Drive more traffic to your website or blog.
• Sell.

Now it is important to understand who your target audience is. Make a detailed portrait of the person you will target when posting on social networks:

• Is it a man or a woman.
• How old is he.
• Where does he live.
• What are you interested in.
• What is his marital status.
• Does he have children.
• Who does he work and how much does he earn
  What problems does he have and why does he need to solve them.

Knowing this information about potential customers, you can easily determine in which social networks these people spend the most time and are most active. On these platforms you also should work.

• Carefully study their pages and save links to them so that you can monitor them periodically.
• What content are they posting?
• How people react to it.
• What would you do differently.

Having collected this data, you will draw up a strategy for promoting the company / brand on the selected sites, you will be able to develop a content plan for the first 2 weeks and decide on the frequency and time of publication.

This is enough to get started. Review the results after about a month. Perhaps the statistics will show that it is worth adjusting the content plan because you are not attracting the right audience. Track the numbers in dynamics and learn to adapt to the reaction of potential customers. Over time, you will figure out in practice how to become an SMM specialist.

Maintaining the pages of companies and brands in social networks has long gone beyond the publication of cute quotes and funny cats. This task has become a set of targeted actions that help to attract traffic to the client's website and “educate” buyers for him. The better you do it, the more valuable you are to customers.

Build your knowledge, experience and competitive edge to become a truly in-demand social media master.