Who is an SMM specialist? The profession of SMM manager: who is he and how to succeed in online promotion

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 acquire 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 a little more complicated than users are used to thinking. This is why it is so important to develop creative posts and interact with a large number of audiences.

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.

The most correct way to communicate with a client in this case is to form 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?

Today there are few people (among those who are friends with the Internet) who would not have heard of such a specialist as an SMM manager. However, only a few will be able to answer the question "who is this and what does he do". And even among employers who post vacancies about the search for this "fashionable" professional, there is no clearly defined understanding of the tasks and responsibilities of an SMM specialist. However, this does not prevent them from interviewing and hiring people responsible for promotion in social networks, and applicants call themselves experts in this field and put forward requests that sometimes shock even generous "salary givers". So who is he, this unpredictable and so necessary SMM manager in our time?

SMM and SMO - what's the difference?

Before talking about the profession itself and its representatives, let's first figure it out with this: what is SMM? how is it different from SMO? what role do these components play in promoting a website / product / company on the Internet?

If we compare it with SEO, then SMO is working directly "on" and "with" the site (internal optimization), and SMM - activity outside of it (external optimization) or marketing in social networks.

The essence of smm activities

Aimed at promoting goods and services posted on the site, in social networks, forums and blogs in order to make them recognizable and thereby attract target visitors - consumers, clients, etc.

SMM activity is often confused with SMO. However, these are two completely different areas of work, designed to achieve the same goal - brand promotion. Unlike SMO, social media marketing does not imply any work directly with the company's website, its content, transformation and optimization. All work is carried out on an external site and consists in communicating with a potential audience, attracting new subscribers and future customers to the site, as well as smoothing out conflicts that arise around the company / brand / product through competent responses to negative reviews / comments.

Thus, we can say that SMM is an effective tool for creating a positive image of a company or product, allowing you to quickly convey information about it through active work in social networks.

SMM specialist and boundaries of his responsibility

Now, having some understanding of the essence of smm-activity, we can proceed to discussing the specialists who carry it out. What should be the ideal applicant for this position, what knowledge and skills to own and, finally, what are the main ones in the company?

To begin with, the profession is relatively new and is not yet fully understood by both employers and job seekers in this field. That is why today there is a huge number of such different and often contradictory opinions and ideas regarding the boundaries of the responsibility of an SMM manager. So, for example, he should not be engaged in one-time advertising and PR-campaigns (this is the responsibility of PR and online advertising specialists) or drawing up proposals, maintaining a client (this is the direct task of the account manager).

An SMM manager is a specialist who is responsible for maintaining and in social networks. His duty is to achieve specific tasks assigned to the commercial platform (groups, pages, blogs) by communicating with the target audience in the virtual space. At the same time, the tasks can be different: sales, increasing brand awareness and remembering the product, improving the company's image, etc.

Thus, there are two main areas of work for a social media manager:

• attracting and increasing audience (subscribers);
• work with an involved audience (communication, answering questions / comments / working with negative reviews).

What is an SMM manager doing during the day?

Given the above, it is interesting to know how the working day of an SMM specialist goes? In order for his work to be effective, it is important to correctly organize it. So, throughout the day, the SMM-specialist needs:

What is he, an SMM specialist? Qualities required by a professional

Agree, the above tasks cannot be called easy and, naturally, not everyone who calls himself "SMM-manager" will be able to do them. What professional and personal qualities should an applicant for this "proud title" have?

In addition, a good specialist must also be technically savvy, possessing social media tools. So, it will not be superfluous to understand analytics and SEO, programming, understand (at least at a basic level) the API of social networks.

Why is it worth "wanting" to become an SMM professional?

Today, it is not so often to meet such a comprehensively developed SMM manager in his field. In the meantime, vacancies appear more and more often on popular job search sites. If you are someone who dreams of a career in the field of social Internet marketing, then re-read the article and rate the quality of your knowledge, skills and abilities. Weak points can always be developed, pumped up and built up, the main thing is to have the desire and not be lazy. However, the salary of an SMM manager is one of the incentives to become a real pro and get into a good company as this specialist. In some spheres, the salary of SMM-specialists reaches the level of 100 thousand rubles or more. Therefore, if you feel the strength in yourself - go for it!

Ron Markosyan wrote a column for the CPU about why the profession “SMM-specialist” does not exist and explained how the work in the SMM department actually works.

From time to time, letters with approximately the same content fall on my mail: "Hello, I am an SMM-specialist!", "You do not need an SMM-specialist?" Sorry for the time of the people who write this.

Against the background of the rapid development of SMM in Russia, there is a problem that is only getting worse every year - this is the problem of personnel. A layer of people from 17 to 30 years old has appeared on the market, who seriously believe that there is such a cool profession - to publish posts and delete spam in comments. If a person, for example, kept a page of a boiler store on VKontakte for six months, now his resume proudly flaunts the position of an SMM specialist or the slang "SMM-schik".

Perhaps, somewhere such a story rolls (unfortunately, rolls), but if a person wants to work in a serious agency and develop in a profession, then the approach should be different.

Often, people who proudly call themselves SMMs know absolutely nothing about how the work process in the agency is built, what are the main blocks of SMM projects, which specialists are involved, how responsibilities are shared between team members, and so on.

I want to make a reservation right away that I mostly consider the processes from the agent side, although I think that all this is also relevant on the client side, but I don’t presume to argue.

It is quite obvious to me that in the modern realities of the profession, the SMM-specialist as such does not exist, at least in an agency. This name was invented at the dawn of domestic SMM, when there was no idea at all about where to get personnel for this area. Therefore, they took one person who was entrusted with leading some kind of group and he, it seemed, became an SMM-scholar. It was normal in those days.

Then everything depended on the person himself. With a sufficient level of desire and interest, he could choose in which direction to develop. I know such examples when people grew up to be excellent specialists. But today, such an approach in an agency that works with large projects is not productive.

Any project in SMM is a combination of two main components:

• customer service;
• internal production and quality control process.

Obviously, one conventional SMM-person cannot do this alone. You need a clear division of labor, well-organized processes and control.

It sounds simple enough in words. In reality, of course, everything is much more complicated.

After all of the above, the reader has a logical question: "If the profession of an SMM-specialist does not exist, then who then works on projects?" At Red Keds, we settled on the following lineup of specialists who should be involved in the process.

• project manager;
• SMM copywriter;
• SMM designer;
• head of the SMM department;
• SMM media planner (optional);
• strategist (optional);
• invited specialist (optional).

Now let's take a closer look at the role of each specialist in the team.

Project manager in SMM

This is the main person on the project who is responsible for everything. Centralization is a very important aspect. Without this, problems of blurred areas of responsibility, misunderstandings in the team, attempts to shift the task from one employee to another, non-compliance with deadlines, and so on will inevitably arise.

In my understanding, a project manager in SMM is a combination of an account manager and a producer, adjusted for knowledge of the specifics and tools in SMM. This means that, on the one hand, the project is responsible for establishing communication with the client and is a single window for all incoming requests, and on the other hand, it is engaged in building an effective production process within the team. There are two key tasks that a project manager must tackle.

SMM copywriter or creator

If you write science fiction novels, then it is far from the fact that you will be able to, for example, come up with and describe on slides the mechanics of activation for some alcohol brand. And there is nothing wrong with that, you just have a different warehouse, different strengths. So for an SMM copywriter, the correct warehouse is important, the ability to use your creative skills in the right direction.

I can give you a few local examples. Imagine that we are working on a brand presence strategy in SMM and there is a creative part in it, for which the SMM copywriter is responsible. He must, at least, clearly understand the structure of his part, must delve into the strategic block on the basis of which his work should be built, must understand the formats, and must also feel the line between reality and the flight of his creative mind. The latter means not to invent something that cannot be implemented at all or within the stated budget.

You might argue that, in essence, the average copywriter does the same thing. If you look at the question superficially, only from the point of view of the structure of the work, then yes. But in fact, if you include in the work on an SMM project a copywriter who specializes, for example, in advertising campaigns in ATL, then most likely nothing good will come of it or something not good enough will come of it. And this is not because the copywriter will be bad, but because he is tailored for other tasks.

Designer of SMM projects

Experience shows that having designers inside the SMM department is not a luxury, but a harsh necessity.

By and large, almost everything that has been said above about an SMM copywriter can be projected onto a designer of SMM projects. Sharpening a specialist for tasks is very important.

It should be borne in mind that an SMM creator and a designer often work together. The quality of the product depends on how quickly and clearly the designer will understand what the creator wants from him. For this, the designer must also have general competence in SMM, at least know everything about formats and tools.

SMM media planner

This specialist is responsible for paid promotion tools and processes, such as targeted advertising on social networks, crops, offer mechanics, placement with opinion leaders, and so on. Also, the area of ​​responsibility of the SMM media planner includes a block of tasks related to the support of promotion processes, in particular, reporting and analytics in real time.

His involvement in the project depends on the presence or absence of tasks related to the promotion.

Strategist

At Red Keds, the strategist is not a specialist in the SMM department, but his role at some stages of work on SMM projects is difficult to overestimate. Therefore, our processes imply tight integration with the strategy department to work on developing SMM strategies (which is logical), for preparing studies and reports in Social Media, as well as other local tasks that require more in-depth analysis and planning.

We were, of course, lucky in this sense, since the strategy department at Red Keds has always been strong, and over the past couple of years, the guys have made a big step forward.

Head of SMM department

The role of the head of the SMM department on a project comes down to three main things - quality control, team motivation, prevention of crisis situations or their elimination, if they do arise. There are many other responsibilities, but they are outside the scope of one particular project, so I do not consider them here.

In my opinion, a positive assessment of the manager's activities can be the fact that his intervention in the project during the course of implementation becomes less and less and is recorded within the framework of clear checkpoints, when he receives a status from the project manager, and also collects feedback from the client. At the same time, the project team is consistently motivated to work.

Invited specialist

Another discovery that does not apply for the Nobel Prize for me was that invited specialists on a project can often become a very important link in a team, not only in terms of optimizing labor resources, but even more so for bringing in additional narrow expertise, which staff members may not have.

Here's a simplified example. The agency has developed an SMM strategy for a company that provides trading services. It is clear that the employees of the agency's SMM department do not have trading expertise. Therefore, a logical step would be to involve a specialist “in the subject” in the process of implementing the strategy. Another question is what else needs to be properly integrated into the work process, but this is already the task of the project manager.

Now let's take another look at the list of specialists presented above. Is there an SMM among them?

Who is an 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 is to professionally manage people and processes within the framework of the brand's social platform.

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 are both users of the MediaJOBS.RU portal itself, and profile groups on the social networks Facebook 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 are sure that social media workers need the skill of quickly searching and processing information, 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.

As for the professional training of an SMM manager, 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 SMM conferences, monitoring foreign resources on demand, reading books on general marketing helps. , advertising, consumer psychology, as well as publics and communities on the subject.

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, the 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, editor-in-chief, 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. "

Welcome to the InetSovety.ru blog. In this article, you will learn who an SMM manager is, what he does and how to master this Internet profession. We all use the Internet for our own purposes, but we cannot influence the system in any way. One of the most popular gathering places for all VR participants is social media. Ordinary users use all their capabilities, including the purchase of all kinds of goods.

However, no one thinks about where these opportunities come from, that is, who gives them. And the SMM specialist is engaged in this. Who is this, what is he doing, what is he for? Let's look at these questions in turn.

The concept of a SMM specialist and the tasks that he solves

Who is a CMM manager and what does he do? First, let's understand the very concept of HMM.

Decoding SMM sounds like Social Media Marketing, or social media marketing. This is an integral part of promoting the interests of companies through the Internet, or rather through social networks (personal pages, groups). All these activities are carried out by the SMMshchik.

It should be noted right away that the services of such a specialist are not cheap at all, so if you are just starting to run your business, you will need to prepare for the upcoming financial expenses. However, believe that thanks to the services of such a worker, you will be able to get much more than you spent in the beginning.

So who is this SMM specialist? Let's figure it out.

Features of the profession

A CMM manager is a person who promotes a business. However, this is a very painstaking work, so if at first glance it seems to you that working in social networks or blogs is easy, then this is not so. In fact, an SMM specialist must also solve many other tasks, namely:

• study the needs, interests, tastes of the audience, on the basis of which a strategy for the further development of the project is being built;
• respond to user requests, study comments, and then respond to them;
• conduct various events to attract new customers - contests, quizzes;
• develop interesting internet applications for social networks;
• create channels on various video hosting sites;
• SMM manager is responsible for advertising campaigns aimed at promoting business on the Internet;
• maintain all accounts or communities associated with the company, as well as moderate them;
• work with freelancers;
• optimize content for the needs of a blog or community on a social network.

But this is not all that the SMM manager does. Moreover, these points are not his responsibilities. These are only the tasks that such a specialist faces. In addition to them, he is engaged in:

• community management;
• work with interfaces of sites, groups in social networks, etc .;
• creating a start page and additional tabs on the pages of the project that he is leading;
• monitoring and analysis of the functioning of all implemented systems;
• highlighting leaders among the target audience, and ensuring close interaction with them;
• creation and maintenance of corporate accounts on social networks, or blogs;
• conducting advertising and marketing moves, but in a veiled form.

That is, if we consider the question of who an SMM manager is from a different angle, then we can definitely say that this is a universal specialist who combines skills:

• marketer;
• advertiser;
• moderator;
• administrator;
• the official representative of the company.

Now you know who an SMM specialist is and what tasks he solves. However, this is not all, since, in addition to solving these tasks, such an employee also has a number of responsibilities. Let's take a look at them.

Professional duties of an SMM specialist

The responsibilities of an SMM manager are quite voluminous, so it must be a responsible person, self-confident, able to make the right decisions and recognize beneficial partners in people.

• forms and promotes SMM products;
• deals with pricing;
• conducts advertising campaigns on social networks;
• finds new customers, while continuing to maintain partnerships with current ones;
• analyzes the activities of competing companies;
• studies new trends in a particular area of ​​business, and implements them into his project;
• creates comments with which you can maintain a good image of the company;
• manages various projects.

That's all the responsibilities of an SMM manager. At first glance, it may seem that this is all very difficult, and indeed: if you decide to connect your life with promotion in social networks, then be prepared for the fact that at first you will have to overcome some difficulties. However, you will soon get used to it, and it will be much easier and more interesting for you to perform the functions of an SMM specialist.

Advantages and disadvantages of the SMM profession

An SMM manager is a very difficult profession, which, in addition to a lot of advantages, has its own negative sides. But first, let's look at the main advantages of this position.

1. Great demand for SMM services, due to the rapid development of marketing in social networks.
2. More trusting and respectful user experience. Unlike an employee in the advertising sphere, to whom people quite often express outright antipathy, this employee is shown much more trust. The SMM manager of social networks has nothing to do with direct advertising, but does all this covertly, carefully and competently, and most importantly, unobtrusively.
3. A wide range of users to create a target audience.
4. The advertising price is relatively low.
5. The ability to look for new clients.

There is only one minus of this profession, but it adds a significant fly in the ointment to the barrel of honey. Due to the fact that an SMM specialist is a person, roughly speaking, free (that is, he is often a freelancer), then potential employers, unfortunately, can not always imagine the scope of work he is doing. Accordingly, they may underestimate its importance in the world of business on social media, which will negatively affect the salary of such an employee. Otherwise, this profession is one big plus.

Requirements for the SMM manager

Understanding and knowing who this SMM specialist is and what he does is not enough to decide whether you are ready for all the difficulties associated with this profession. In addition, you should be aware of what knowledge and skills such an employee has. Without this, you will not be able to work in this position.

As for personal qualities, the SMM should have:

• communication skills, that is, to be sociable and have a large vocabulary;
• creativity, that is, have a lot of creativity;
• desire to reach new heights;
• thirst for self-improvement;
• the ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the information received;
• the ability to think systematically, logically and consistently;
• such a character trait as self-organization;
• the ability to orient oneself and orient others to achieve positive results from joint activities;
• independence;
• the ability to quickly and efficiently solve assigned tasks;
• the ability to creatively and easily express your thoughts, and at the same time convey them to other users;
• a good sense of humor (this quality will definitely come in handy when creating an advertising campaign).

In principle, these are all the requirements for such an employee as an SMM worker. If you are confident that you will cope with all the tasks set, and you have all of the above qualities and skills, then it will not be difficult for you to overcome the path up the career ladder.

How and where can you learn a profession?

How to become an SMM specialist? First of all, you must master:

• the basics of creating and promoting contextual advertising Google Edwards and Yandex Direct;
• the essence of working with Internet statistics and web analytics;
• Internet communication skills;
• basic rules for working in social networks;
• SEO rules;
• basics and;
• web technologies.

SMM manager training can be taken at many universities and institutes in Russia. Of course, most of them are located in Moscow, and the most popular educational institutions are:

1. National Research University Higher School of Economics.
2. Russian State University of Oil and Gas named after Gubkin.
3. MGUMO MFA of Russia.
4. MSTU named after Bauman (the so-called "baumanka"), etc.

It should be noted right away that these educational institutions do not teach how to become an SMM specialist. However, they will be able to give you all the necessary knowledge in the field of marketing and the exact sciences, which you will then be able to successfully use in order to start working in social networks as an SMM.

You can get the necessary skills to promote your business on social networks by signing up for online training at the University of Internet Professions Netology .

Career advancement

You must remember that at first, SMM for beginners can be very difficult at times. You will have to go through many steps that will gradually lead you up the career ladder to the coveted position. But first you have to work:

• moderator in a group on the vastness of social networks;
• leading their blog on the Internet;
• SEO optimizer;
• freelancer, copywriter, web designer;
• advertiser or PR man.

Of course, in order to become an SMM operator, it is not at all necessary to get a job for each position (or study at an institute) separately. Nothing prevents you, while working in one of these areas, to simultaneously study another. Thus, you will save time and money, because you will know exactly what qualities and skills such a specialist as an SMM manager combines in himself.