99 Main Skills of a SMM Specialist

Social media marketing has changed from simple page posting into a structured digital marketing function. A strong SMM specialist now needs to understand audience research, content planning, paid social media campaigns, community management, analytics and the role social media plays inside a wider SEO and marketing strategy.

Good social media work is not measured by personal popularity, random creativity or the number of followers someone has on their own account. A professional SMM specialist should know how to connect content, targeting, engagement, reporting and business goals, so social media activity supports brand visibility, search demand, website traffic, leads and customer retention.

In this article we have systematized the list of skills and competencies that are important for an SMM specialist. These are skills we pay attention to while hiring people for Katra Marketing, and we try to develop them in employees working in the digital marketing field. You can use this list while interviewing candidates or choosing marketing agency services for your social media work.

SMM Specialist Should Know:

Strategy Development:

Social media strategy should start with the business goal, not with the content format. Before choosing posts, reels, stories or ads, an SMM specialist needs to understand the target audience, market context, positioning and how social media will support sales, awareness, SEO signals and customer engagement.

1. Define the target audience;
2. Analyze the interests and behaviour of the target audience;
3. Identify the target audience primary vectors;
4. Make customer niche analysis;
5. Develop the argument base;
6. Choose the social media platforms with high concentration of target audience;
7. Develop the common social media strategy for any type of business;
8. Choose the optimal tools for client's requirements;
9. Create KPIs system;
10. Identify the SMM's influence to the client's business;
11. Integrate SMM activities with the overall marketing strategy of the company.

Social Media Marketing Skills:

Social media marketing requires practical platform knowledge, campaign planning and the ability to adapt messages for different networks. The specialist should understand both organic and paid activity, because visibility usually depends on content quality, targeting, timing, budget control and audience behaviour.

12. Right positioning of the Internet-communities;
13. Manage targeted ads on LinkedIn;
14. Manage targeted ads on Facebook;
15. Understand mobile advertising techniques;
16. Forecast the context advertising budget;
17. Optimize the context advertising budget;
18. Create and follow-up flashmobs and engaging promotions;
19. Creating apps for social media;
20. Create and promote events;
21. Adapting marketing campaigns for niche SM networks;
22. Manage viral campaigns;
23. Optimize geotargeting;
24. Neutralize the negative responses in social media and blog platforms;
25. Report problem issues to Facebook support;
26. Project and follow-up special campaigns;
27. Work with social networks related to professional connections;
28. Understand the principles of ratings and top searches;
29. Create branding channels on video hosting;
30. Organize partner programs for SMM work.

Community Management:

Community management is not only replying to comments. It includes guiding discussions, protecting brand tone, handling negative feedback and keeping the audience active enough to support trust, loyalty and repeat interaction with the brand.

31. Push discussions to the flow needed;
32. Neutralize negative users in communities;
33. Increase users activity in social media communities;
34. Increase users turnover for public communities;
35. Organize and manage online-events;
36. Tune customer support system through social media platforms.

Content Management:

Content management is one of the central skills of an SMM specialist. The specialist should be able to plan content by platform, audience intent and business objective, while keeping the brand message clear and useful across posts, videos, blogs and short-form formats.

37. Create the content map for different SM platforms;
38. Adapt the existing content, including articles, news and images, for different social media networks;
39. Write content for different social media formats;
40. Write texts for blog platforms;
41. Create content for Wikipedia format;
42. Write content for Twitter;
43. Write and spread press releases;
44. Prepare informational causes;
45. Create video scenarios.

Interface Work:

Social media activity often connects with websites, landing pages, blogs, ecommerce pages and conversion paths. An SMM specialist should understand how users move from social media to the next step, whether that is a website visit, inquiry, booking, purchase or subscription.

46. Branding work for online communities;
47. Creating design for public communities;
48. Integrate company website with social media;
49. Align e-commerce website with social media;
50. Stimulate visitors to become community members;
51. Create landing pages;
52. Create welcome pages;
53. Create inserts manually;
54. Use services for insert creation on Facebook;
55. Understand the mechanisms of website conversion;
56. Work with WordPress, RSS, FeedBurner, ShareThis and other mechanisms for stand-alone blogs.

Work with Community Opinion Leaders:

Influencers, opinion leaders, ambassadors and niche community voices can affect awareness and trust. The SMM specialist should know how to identify relevant people, plan cooperation and connect influencer activity with the wider brand and content strategy.

57. Define the target market opinion leaders;
58. Organize events for opinion leaders;
59. Organize sampling events;
60. Participate in marketing SM groups;
61. Assign administrators for forums and other online communities;
62. Work with brand ambassadors.

Analytics:

Analytics separates professional social media marketing from random posting. A strong specialist should know how to read platform data, track traffic quality, understand campaign performance and explain how social media contributes to marketing results.

63. Use automated tools for monitoring;
64. Monitor social media and blogs manually;
65. Analyze news breaks;
66. Analyze the overall tone of brand mentions;
67. Find out the negative responses in social media and blogs;
68. Analyze SM campaigns' effectiveness;
69. Work with primary tools of web analytics;
70. Generate unique URLs;
71. Follow the primary sources and traffic quality;
72. Define conversion actions of any online campaign;
73. Calculate the price of a conversion action;
74. Analyze the changes in information space;
75. Make social media researches;
76. Define the nature of negative responses;
77. Use internal systems for social media statistics.

Marketing Skills:

An SMM specialist should understand marketing beyond social media platforms. Social media content has to support positioning, customer perception, campaign goals, SEO, paid media, personal branding and the overall communication strategy of the company.

78. Keep in touch with online media managers;
79. Understand the social psychology rules;
80. Make SWOT analysis;
81. Define Unique Selling Proposition;
82. Media planning;
83. Media buying;
84. Initiate content reposting;
85. Calculate marketing campaign budget;
86. Understand the specifics of working with personal brands;
87. Understand new digital tools, including mobile and augmented reality;
88. Use the primary digital marketing tools, including context advertising, media advertising and SEO.

Managerial Skills:

Social media work involves planning, reporting, coordination and client communication. Even a creative SMM role needs project management discipline, because campaigns, content calendars, reporting, approvals and outsourced work all need structure.

89. Prepare a proposal for the client;
90. Participate in negotiations;
91. Look for SMM trends;
92. Find outsourced companies and know how to work with them;
93. Write use cases based on successful campaigns;
94. Make presentations;
95. Prepare editorial calendar and follow it;
96. Prepare reports;
97. Present new concepts, reports and ideas to the client;
98. Organize brainstorming in the team;
99. Manage projects.

Which skills did we miss? Any ideas?

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P.S. If you have more than 50 skills from the list, come and work with Katra Marketing.