3 Key Skills for Social Media Success

The problem with social media is that nearly everyone connects with it in some way. For businesses, this can lead to a false sense of security over the skills and expertise needed to execute a strong strategy.

Using social media for a company can be a complex and delicate process, with changes evolving along the way. To make the most of the opportunities that present themselves on these platforms, you need to make sure you have professionals with the right expertise on your team.

Here are just three skills that are necessary for social media success:

1. Strategy

Like any other area of business, social media requires a good amount of planning and preparation. This isn't just a case of brainstorming what ideas you have for different platforms, but knowing how your customer base will engage with each one and what sort of content you should be pushing. You need to find out where your audience is and identify ways you can offer them something of genuine value.

Another important element of the strategic process is setting yourself goals. Creating SMART goals can help keep you on track and ensure that you are being realistic with your ambitions.

2. Creativity

Because it is essentially a tech role, people often think that social media is just data crunching and understanding algorithms but, although these would definitely benefit any strategy, creativity is much more important.

Social media specialists know how to push the boundaries of each platform to allow you to stand out from the crowd, without making any PR faux pas. They understand the balance of text, images and other content and which will engage with your audience best on any given platform.

With emotional marketing having the potential to be extremely effective, understanding your consumers and how to offer them something new can make all the difference to your campaign.

3. Management

Management is something most people underestimate - or forget about completely - when it comes to social media. Cultivating and nurturing your online community is an essential part of success online but too many companies are solely focused on what they're posting.

Of course, this is also important but can't come at the expense of investing time into management. A core part of why social media is so successful for businesses is because it gives them a platform to watch, respond and even create genuine conversations with peers and consumers.

A massive amount of social media users contact companies on Facebook or Twitter if they have a concern or complaint about their service. This means if you're not engaging with them, you're losing a fantastic opportunity to interact with consumers and potentially change their mind about your brand.