Profession SMM-manager. The profession of SMM manager: who is he and how to succeed in online promotion

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An SMM manager is a specialist whose 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:

• She is constantly learning.
• Knows the secret to social media.
• Masterfully owns auxiliary tools in order to quickly and efficiently do his job.
• Knows how to correctly express thoughts and your audience likes it.
• Tracks trends.
• Knows psychology.

SMM-manager - who is this: functions, tasks

• You wrote the text - topic, title, content of the post (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 too much).
• We came up with the design, because it is important to hook people.
• Posted your masterpiece on social media.
• We were waiting for an explosion of likes, comments, reposts.

Having not received the desired reaction, you made a new publication unwillingly. And then another, etc. - then every day, then every other day, then once a week. But the subscribers did not increase, only you and your mother liked you, and sales from social networks began to seem like something unrealistic, like unicorns or children.

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

What does an SMM manager do

Firstly, it saves you time, effort and nerves. This person understands how your potential buyers behave on social networks, so he knows how to attract them. He learned to do the job well. And it doesn't matter if he went through trainings or got 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, get them moving and rock communication. Engage the audience in some kind of social process.

Second, it creates content and engages in dialogue with your potential customers. Thanks to this, awareness of your brand and product grows, more people come to the site and get into the funnel. He also gains 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 trends, his actions give results. Even before starting, you should discuss your wishes, goals and methods with the SMM.

Fourth, he constantly reviews 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 to grow.

SMM manager: salary as the price of success

On average, the salary of an SMM specialist starts at 40,000 rubles. This is according to message boards. But this figure can either decrease or increase depending on various factors:

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

The larger the amount 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 a reason to offer lower service fees.

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

• Constantly improve.
• Find ways to get better results with less cost.
• To show in every possible way that in his person the employer gets more benefit than he pays for it.

Plus, working remotely, you can take not one project, but several. Especially if you masterfully own various tools that simplify your work.

What you need to know to become an SMM manager

At first glance, it may seem that there is nothing difficult in such work. But if you dig deeper, it turns out that the software specialist is a real universal soldier. He should understand:

1. The laws of social networks, because each of them has its own specifics and must be taken into account.
2. Copywriting to prepare posts and engage your audience with them.
3. Work with image processing programs and create catchy images for published publications.
4. Psychology to know how to behave with subscribers and what they need to be given in order to push them to a certain action.
5. Strategic planning and business processes, because he needs to understand where to go 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 assess 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 in a quality manner. But besides this, it is also important to be a literate, erudite person with an excellent 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:

• To yourself - 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.
• Basics of Web Design.

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 purpose 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 in order to prescribe a strategy for further actions and improvement of performance.
• Launch advertising on selected sites and get the maximum result from it.
• Use content marketing to achieve your goals.

Develop constantly, because social media is a very dynamic environment. Therefore, regularly read books, posts of opinion leaders (and foreign ones as well), 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 like a pro.

How does an SMM's work begin

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

• What exactly do you suggest.
• What is its main feature.
• What problems does it solve.

• Become more popular.
• Gather a group of like-minded people in one place and educate "fans" of the brand.
• Drive more traffic to your website or blog.
• Sell.

Now it's important to understand who your target audience is. Make a detailed portrait of the person you will be targeting 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 works 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 which social networks these people spend the most time and are most active on. It is on these sites that you have to work.

• Study their pages carefully and keep links to them for periodic monitoring.
• What kind of content they post.
• How people react to it.
• What you yourself would have done 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 you started. After about a month, analyze the results. Perhaps statistics will show that it is worth adjusting the content plan, because you are not attracting the right audience. Track numbers over time 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 company and brand pages on social networks has long gone beyond publishing cute quotes and funny cats. This task has become a complex of targeted actions that help to attract traffic to the client's site and "educate" buyers for him. The better you do it, the more valuable you are to your customers.

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

Hello my dear readers! Rimma Belyakina with you. On the pages of the blog site, we talk about remote work and the opportunities that it provides. Internet technologies are not even the future, they are a confident present.

More zealous 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. We will consider this in more detail in this article. Let's 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 everything together, you probably would have gotten a rather sickly ledger, a kind of 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, study and work, purchases and sales. That is, everything that we previously had only in real life has smoothly migrated into the virtual one.

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 the process of attracting interest in any Internet resource through social platforms.

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

To put it even simpler: you are a businessman (real or conventional), 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 it your product in all possible 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 the selection of 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, 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: smm-manager, SMM-manager, SMM-specialist, internet marketer. The essence of this does not change, and the tasks are the same in any case:

1. Determine the target audience and study its interests.
2. Conduct a niche analysis: on which platform is it better to promote the brand, in what ways and tools.
3. To achieve an increase in the audience through a set of events, which includes advertising, promotions, contests, and sweepstakes.
4. Work on creating the company's image: conduct a PR campaign, track feedback, 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, since 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 site for your target audience. Why might this be important? Because there are already quite a lot of social networks now, and each has its own contingent. Accordingly, their interests are different.
2. Placement of the communication platform. Having decided on the social network, it is important to think over the place of gathering the audience for communication. What could it be? A specially created group, or a community, or a public, or your account. The main thing is not this, but that this platform should constantly work, provide the audience with “bread and circuses,” that is, the content it needs. And this is the next stage.
3. Content creation and placement. It should not only be interesting and useful, but also viral, that is, one that is liked and shared. To promote your public faster, you need to invest money and launch ads.
4. Making a profit or monetizing a project. The most difficult and controversial stage, since the main goal of the smr is to ensure that the bulk of subscribers are transferred to the customer's website and make them consumers. Here, as you are lucky. There are various cases of monetization, both successful and exactly the opposite: you can achieve good earnings and on a group with 3 - 5 thousand subscribers, but you can get "mere kopecks" from groups of "hundred thousand".

Here, perhaps, it will be useful to remind about the development of the correct strategy and tactics for the successful implementation of the project. And also that in each case, except for the plan, you need its 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 do not want to repeat myself. You can read about this in my previous article on. 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 article "", where you can learn a lot useful information and even life hacks on this topic. Do not be lazy to do it. After all, your success will depend on how effectively you own SMM-tools.

Pros and cons of SMM

Any industry has its pros and cons, and before starting any business, you need to weigh the pros and cons. Let's now consider what priorities social marketing gives and whether, in general, it is worth doing.

So, here are the benefits social marketing gurus put forward to the top positions:

1. Demand. The demand for the services of SMM specialists is growing steadily.
2. Freelance work. Having understood IT-technologies and mastered SMM-mechanisms, you can not “sweat” in the office. Many people choose to work from home.
3. Creative path. An opportunity to show all your hidden talents.
4. Huge audience of potential customers: after all, social networks have millions of users.
5. Minimum start-up costs 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 the downsides? I would prefer to call them the difficulties that will have to be faced in the course of work. And first of all it is:

1. Selection of content that favorably illustrates the promoted product. It takes a rich imagination, inherent in few, and a considerable amount of time to find the right material and arrange it.
2. Working with advertising. Investments are most likely indispensable. 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 towards the Internet. Competition also goes there.

How to become an SMM specialist?

Since the specialty under consideration would be more correct to characterize not as narrowly focused, but rather as broad-based, a lot of knowledge and skills that a smr should have is required.

What knowledge and skills should an SMM worker 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 engaging viral content,
• be able to develop and apply in practice strategies to attract an audience from social networks to the customer's website.

Self-organization and self-discipline are important qualities. If a specialist needs a kick from his boss, then this is a bad specialist. However, excessive initiative is also superfluous. She, as you know, can be “punishable”. Here it is important to “find a middle ground” so as not to “burn out”.

Where can you learn this?

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

Of these, we can single out the TOP-3 of the best:

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

As you can see, there are options, there are many of them, since 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”, in the same way and without difficulty you will find something to your liking in the online space, since this business is modern, relevant, and profitable.

Summing up

So, we looked at what SMM is. I have tried to present the material as simply as possible. I hope it was clear.

Summarizing all of the above, we can draw a simple conclusion: SMM is trending today. It is a difficult but effective way to manage online sales and relationships. This is a varied and promising job that will suit energetic, pragmatic, modern natures.

In the next article, we will take a closer look at the profession of an SMM manager. Keep for updates.

I would like to believe and know that the article was useful and helped in some way. One way or another, I am waiting for your feedback, comments, suggestions. Let's discuss. Until then. And see you soon.

Who it SMM manager ? The profession of an SMM manager is one of the most demanded and promising in the IT industry. In addition, this profession requires constant dynamic learning in order to keep abreast of the latest trends and knowledge in this area.

Thus, he is a universal specialist, whose activity consists in the professional management of people and processes within the framework of social platform brand.

Publishes interesting material on the results of an on-line survey of the site MediaJOBS.RU.

Results of the on-line survey "About the work of an SMM manager in the opinion of the SMM managers themselves" published the portal MediaJOBS.RU, the leading Russian specialized resource about work and professions in media and advertising.

The survey was attended by 317 people. Among them, both users of the MediaJOBS.RU portal itself, and profile groups in social Facebook networks and VKontakte.

Three main questions were asked:

1. SMM manager job: what qualifications are required first of all?
2. Where do they provide quality training for the work of an SMM manager?
3. Your advice on sources of knowledge for the work of an SMM manager.

Such leaders came out qualities of a successful SMM manager as an understanding of the brand being promoted, a sense of humor, as well as knowledge of the laws of marketing in SocialMedia and the social base of the audience. Only a little more than half of the respondents (54%) consider literacy to be an important quality of an SMM manager. 51% of respondents believe social media workers need skill quick search and information processing, analytics. The fact that for the success of SMM campaigns a manager needs to work, not counting the time, indicated by 39% of respondents (it would be interesting to know how many of them are really ready to work irregular day for the sake of the result). A third of the survey participants noted the need to work with graphic packages, knowledge of design. And every fifth respondent spoke in favor of the usefulness of knowledge of the basics of SEO.

Concerning vocational training SMM manager, then according to the majority of survey participants, 50% of the experience working in social media gets on his own, through his own trial and error, otherwise participation in conferences on SMM, monitoring foreign resources on demand, reading books on general marketing, advertising, psychology helps consumers, as well as publics and communities on the topic.

The survey noted the existence in Russia of several good courses for beginners in SMM. Among them, respondents indicated such courses as IKRA, Center for Online Education "Netology", School of Social Media "Engage".

Among the authors of specialized courses and seminars more often than others, survey participants named Igor Ashmanov, Damir Khalilov, Dmitry Sidorin... In addition, the courses Natalia Odegova, Ilya Balakhnin, Dmitry Rumyantsev and Alena Lenskaya.

At the same time already grew critical of to the "founders" of SMM "generation SMM-next". “Some“ gurus ”remained in the time when they themselves first looked into social networks, and social networks have already left and turned aside along the way. Yes, the trail of the past "guru" is still enough, but the dust of the past is reluctant to learn. And what "funny" accounts the teachers themselves have! Come in and laugh. What can people teach who do not know how to maintain a page of their own company in an interesting way? ”- noted one of the respondents.

“It is necessary to communicate and read those who really lead client and branded publics and receive these rights not because of a rollback. Pros - Sergey Fedyunin, Sergey Malikov, guys from the RIA Novosti team, someone from the Apostle, those who lead groups of all kinds of complex goods and services (pumps, windows, cars) that are difficult to attract an audience, "- points out another young SMM managers.

There are a lot of tips on sources of knowledge for the work of an SMM manager. Among Western sources, Social Networks. The Operations Manual by Mike Dalworth, Marketing of the Like Era by Dave Kerpen, and the work of Odden Lee.

Among the most interesting resources that help to "understand" the profession are called likeni.ru, cossa.ru, smm2.ru, seopult.ru, ingate.ru, socialbakers.com, lifehacker.ru, advertology.ru, adindex.ru, netology.ru , fb: SMM 100% , fb: ideablog , vk: SMM people , vk: Internet magazine about SMM, twitter: SMM Vesti.

However, there is still no place to get a systematic and high-quality education in this area. “But getting a job for a beginner is a pain,” say SMM managers.

The editorial staff of MediaJOBS.RU asked leading experts to comment on the results and answer the actual questions of the SMM managers themselves:

Katya Tulyankina, Head of the SMM and Reputation Management Department of the Internet Marketing Department, Ashmanov & Partners

“About a sense of humor, I think that it is important in any job. And whether it is good or not is not the most objective concept. Rather, it is important for an SMM specialist to be on the same wavelength with the team. As for education, personally I can only single out Damir Khalilov and his school, everything else, in my opinion, is a way of making money. Ideally, when the educational base of an SMM-specialist is a higher marketing or psychological education, and everything else comes with experience.

The three most important qualifications of an SMM manager today: understanding the fundamentals of psychology and behavior of the audience of social networks, strategic thinking, ease of movement.

We accept people into our team, first of all, by an intuitive feeling, whether this field of activity is suitable for the applicant and whether he will join our team. The inner atmosphere in each project team is the key to the successful implementation of the project. We will never accept a person into the team who does not understand the goals and objectives of their actions. That is, in my opinion, a good SMM-specialist should be a good analyst, be guided by the performance indicators of each SMM-tool, be able to predict the achievement of indicators, promptly adjust the direction of his activities if the result did not justify the forecast. "

Ekaterina Rukavishnikova, SocialMedia manager, Beeline

“The main requirements for the qualifications of an SMM manager are the highest degree of responsibility (social networks are not just a public space, they are a hyperpublic space where you need to monitor your every step). Perfect literacy, knowledge and understanding of the style of the Russian language. It is also important to understand the specifics of the brand being promoted and its target audience in social networks.

A candidate for our team must have a year or two of SMM experience. Plus, I would add resistance to stress and the ability to quickly get together in an emergency, to correctly prioritize with a large number of tasks. We will never hire an SMM manager for someone who still believes that SMM's job is to post posts once a day over a cup of coffee and engage the audience with cats. And more seriously, a person who cannot clearly define the line between a joke and a harsh banter, which can be very dangerous for the brand. "

Alina Bazelyuk, Chief Editor COSSA

“One of our missions is to educate new people in the industry. It's great that, judging by the polls, we succeed. By the way, materials on SMM are among the most read and commented on on Cossa). Sometimes this interest is even frightening: besides social networks, do readers need something ?!

At the same time, we are not an agency, we do not have the position of an SMM manager, editorial staff are engaged in social networks. We have formulated the basic principles of social networks for ourselves as follows.

User, not page. A social network is not a mirror of a site, it is a separate territory, one might say, an independent mini-publication. We strive not only to announce our main materials, but also to use the features of the sites: we communicate with users, look for new topics in the dialogue, discuss news, materials from colleagues, and readers' posts. We strive to behave in social networks like “who”, not like “what” - a user, not a page.

Dialogue and self-criticism. We try to answer questions and comments, “get in touch”. It is not always possible to do this without emotion, especially when you need to respond to a remark: the reader loves to grumble, and not always to the point. But criticism is also fair, and it is important to accept it with dignity and draw a lesson, benefit, or even material for a future article from the remark.

Time and immersion. Practice shows that social networks cannot be dealt with occasionally - the reader will notice this. You need to be there constantly in order to promptly offer news, to be a participant in communication. This is perhaps the most difficult thing. "

Kristina Mikheeva, managing partner of the MediaJOBS.RU portal and an expert recruiting agency States.RU

“The results of the survey on qualifications in the work of an SMM manager, in my opinion, demonstrated the obvious“ maturation ”of this profession. It is important that the functionality is structured - at least in the profession of an SMM manager, an SMM analyst, a marketer and an editor are singled out. Most of the survey participants already working in SMM recognize the need for a serious background: marketing, branding, PublicRelations and journalism. Plus psychology is desirable. In addition, cases of internal self-restraint, responsibility for SMM activity have been developed, which always indicates the exit from the childhood state of the professional group as a whole. "

Daria Golovanova

Reading time: 14 minutes

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

What can be the responsibilities of an ideal SMM manager?

The main responsibilities of the person responsible for SMM in the company may include:

• building a general strategy for the brand's presence in social networks;
• making this strategy a reality;
• the ability to feel and understand the brand, orient all actions to 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, and ordering a lot of shootings is not always the most budgetary 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, the ability to write and correct text content;
• knowledge of at least the basics of layout and understanding of usability for optimizing 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 define in their own way who an SMM person is in his company and what exactly he should do. In interviews, the conversation often begins like this: "Let's define what we mean by this word." So, one employer sees in this place an employee who, having decided on the goal, splits it into tasks, selects tools, briefs, monitors, reports to the SMM director or the 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 should grow bushy: he should be versatile and ready to perform a wide range of work.

Now let's get down to debunking the myths rooted in our heads.

Myth 1. Working in social networks - for trainees and students

Social media marketing is one of the essential tasks to grow a business of any size. If you think this is some kind of childish task that any student can do, then you can give up on your reputation. Incorrect positioning, low-quality content, misunderstanding of the strategy and goals - all this, at best, will 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 media is the same job 8 hours 5 days a week

Here's another common stereotype. Social media marketing is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, daily. For SMM marketing to have a significant authority on social networks, you need to be online at all times. This means that you must be able to use various planning tools, ideally, be able to answer the questions of potential buyers at any time of the day or night (after all, if the Internet never sleeps).

Myth 3. You can't achieve effective and measurable results from an SMM marketer

Measuring the result and effectiveness of work in SMM today also does not seem impossible. There are several options to track the result of the work of an SMM-specialist:

• Pay attention to reach, user engagement, paid-to-social traffic conversion. And don't forget to track ROI - an indicator of the return on investment for SMM.
• Track the growth rates of the ER - Engagement Index.
• Analyze the place of SMM in associated conversions. Thus, you will be able to assess the employee's return on investment.

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

Experienced SMMs won't ask friends and family to like their posts all the time. They know very well that they will not be able to deceive the program that calculates the activity coefficient. It is arranged a little more complicated than users are used to thinking. This is why it is so important to create creative posts and interact. large quantity audience.

Myth 5: We don't need it at all

Social media is not good for our industry. " Many people think so. 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 networks, watch news on interesting topics, including their professional focus. Look around: from kids to grandparents, everyone is on social media these days.

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

In principle, this is possible. But only in the presence of a unique product and with initially ideally developed marketing.

Myth 6. The demand for SMM specialists has already been formed

As we can see on 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 intensifying.

Myth 7. An 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 promotion will give absolutely nothing to a 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 when carrying out regular work.

Of course, you can pay a specialist even 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 spent time, money and nerves, they turn to professionals for help.

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

Myth 8. Does an SMM-man need to have a lot of subscribers himself?

Maybe yes. But not "bots". You must admit that it is very undesirable when a person has 4,000 friends, and on his wall there are cats liked by his mother.

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

However, there are many professional SMMs who, on the contrary, appear minimally on social networks. Perhaps it is the satiety of social networks.

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 guy can do everything.

Very often, they can demand anything from the SMM - and calculate 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 trusted simply to control 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, every day something changes and new things are invented.

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

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An SMM marketer is a specialist who drives traffic from social networks for companies.

Such an employee can be compared to a magician. One who skillfully juggles several objects in the air at once. All the attention of the public at this moment is concentrated on the circus. This is also the case in social media marketing. The real professional in this field is the man-orchestra. He operates with a large number of tools to gather its target audience around the brand, expand its reach, and increase profits. There is only one difference - people look at the brand, and not at the smm person himself.

Ideal SMM marketer for a project

Being such a specialist is not easy. For you to understand the scale, an article was published a few years ago about a hundred skills that he must possess. We will tell you about the key skills. In general, such an employee is responsible for all work with content, communications and traffic.

What is the responsibility of an smm marketer

• Analysis of competitors' activities.
• Research of preferences and reactions of potential buyers.
• Drawing up a content plan for a month.
• Preparation of a brand or product promotion strategy.
• Creation, filling and maintenance of a group, public, account.
• Communication with users, etc.
• Attracting people to the community.
• Study new trends and implement them if necessary.
• Conducting contests, quizzes.
• Setting up targeted and contextual advertising, search for a site for its placement.
• Tracking indicators using special services (number of subscribers, growth in coverage, number of visits to the site, company awareness, engagement, user activity, return on money invested in promotion).

Qualities and skills of a good smr.

Do you love using social media? Do you know how to communicate with different people? Do you have an analytical mind? If you answered yes to all of these questions, you have every chance of becoming. Of course, you need a lot more skills to grow into a professional.

• Literacy. Communities led by a specialist are the face of the brand. Mistakes are unacceptable, as they can cause negative subscribers.
• Acquaintance with graphic editors... A large proportion of the content you have to deal with is visual. Resizing an image, adding a logo to it, enhancing a photo shouldn't be a problem for you.
• Knowledge. It is very important to learn at least the basics, because this position involves working with the reputation of the company, attracting clients, managing advertising and its budget.
• Ability to write texts. You need to know the nuances and formulas for writing informational and regular posts. You also need to have a flair and understand what the target audience will like.
• Understanding psychology. The specialist's duties include communicating with subscribers, increasing visitor activity, responding to negative reviews and messages.
• Creative thinking. It will be needed in order to easily generate new ideas for promotion, create contests, promotions, chips to increase audience engagement.
• Knowledge of web analytics tools and services that help evaluate the results of work.

How to become an SMM specialist

There are no educational institutions where you can get the necessary skills, but there are numerous courses. A higher education as a marketer will be a good help. But the only key to success for an smm manager is constant self-education.

• Read books on PR, SEO, copywriting, advertising. All this will come in handy in your work.
• Watch video tutorials. There are tons of free content on YouTube and other sites.
• Take online and regular workshops. Don't miss your chance to chat with an expert live. This will give you valuable advice and inspiration from his example.
• Publics, groups, blogs, instagram on relevant topics. There are a lot of them: Cossa, SMMPlanner, Popartmarketing, Instashkola, vk.com/bizness_online, vk.com/cerebro_vk and more.

There are a lot of sources, you need to be able to structure the information received and immediately apply it in practice. Remember that theoretical background is important, but it will not make you a professional. How do you get invaluable experience?

To get started, create personal accounts on those sites where you want to work in the first place. You can immediately apply all the knowledge gained on your account... In addition, it will be strange if the smm marketer does not have his own page. This will kill two birds with one stone: start building your personal brand and develop skills.

There are several more ways to learn social media promotion from scratch:

• Come up with a company and promote it.
• Create communities for the business of your acquaintances.
• Find firms that clearly need help with and offer your services.
• Get an internship at an agency or a well-known specialist.

How to learn to write

You need practice. The more you write, the better you get it. Read books about sales and informational copy, think about what's interesting to your audience (real or fictional), and get started. You can independently invent tasks for yourself or register on the content exchange. The second option is less suitable, since an interesting task is not always found. But on the other hand, for its implementation, you will receive payment (albeit small), overcome the fear of a blank slate and get an idea of ​​what commercial articles are.

An SMM specialist is a difficult and demanded profession. If you decide to become an smm-boxer, get ready for constant self-education, experimentation and an irregular day. Very often, such specialists are in touch most of the day, since you also need to be a community manager, which means that you can answer questions from subscribers in a timely manner. This can be called the main disadvantage of working on social networks. The rest is an exciting activity, during which you will gain a lot of knowledge and skills in related fields and become a sought-after employee.