Social media has emerged as a hub for marketers. The dynamics of social media have changed hence the knowledge and skills required to succeed in digital marketing have also emerged. Below are the social media skills a marketer must have in 2017
Designing /Editing
Every social media manager in 2017 must have the know-how of designing and editing, for obvious reasons. Pictures and videos exhibit more information, that too in an interesting way. Consumers prefer seeing picture/video adverts over other types of adverts.
A survey conducted by HubSpot in 2016 suggests that 43% of consumers want to see more video-based content in the future.
Recent trends suggest that consumers are moving away from text-based adverts hence marketers must have the knowledge and skills of designing adverts.
Analytics and Research
Having knowledge and skills of analytics are extremely necessary for this contemporary era. Utilization of data collected through insights and analytics is an important element of marketing strategies. Modern marketing strategies are based on consumer behavior, preferences, and habits hence data collected through analytics is extremely important. Analytics will indicate the impact and success of marketing campaigns.
Understanding of Analytics will also enable marketers and businesses to measure their growth and ROI, and compare it against set targets.
Marketers able to comprehend analytics and extract actionable information have an edge over marketers not skilled in analytics.
Writing and creativity
Even though video/image-based adverts are all the rage these days, text-based content marketing isn’t dead at all. It is a must-have social skill and its importance cannot be ignored. As suggested by HubSpot Consumer Behavior survey, 44% of consumers still want to see news articles in the future and 29% of the consumers are still interested in blogs. The figures are enough to suggest that video/picture-based adverts haven’t been able to sideline text-based content as yet.
Personally written content also provides an intangible feature of ‘personal touch’. Artificial intelligence can never match the personally written content.
Marketers must be skilled in writing as they’d be able to communicate their message in an effective manner. They should be able to produce content to cater and target individuals with diverging personalities. Also, the content they produce must be unique and interesting, with catchy and appealing content.
Community Management
Community management is a vast idea that covers numerous aspects. Community management is an effective mechanism that nurtures relationships with customers by engaging and interacting with them. Community managers are determined to approach and sprout conversations with potential customers. Once you’ve established relationships and brand loyalty, customers will create user-generated content. UGC is an extremely effective way to spread awareness about a brand in an organic manner.
Marketers who have expertise in community management are extremely valuable to the industry
SEO
Some may think that SEO is dead. Is it? Not at all, SEO and marketing are closely related and pretty much interdependent. Even though ad-based promotion is effective, but organic search results are potentially more influential as about 40% of consumers explore a company through search, as per Forbes. The figures clearly suggest how important SEO is.
Marketers, preferably, should be expert in SEO as SEO skills require refining and enhancements over the time.
Public Speaking
Public speaking skills are more important in social media than they used to be. With the introduction of Facebook Live and Instagram Live, public speaking skills are pretty much going to be tested.
Even though you can avoid going live but the influence and effectiveness of live sessions cannot be ignored. What could be a better alternative to interacting with consumers, almost face-to-face? None.
Going live not only seeks attention, but your messages can be conveyed more effectively, to the consumers.
Marketers with public speaking skills can bring greater engagement and more brand loyalty for the business.
Third-party tools
Third-party online marketing tools are being widely used by marketers of this modern era. There are countless marketing tools out there that can be utilized to gain popularity, organize or automate marketing tasks and assist marketing strategy.
Tools such as Vibbi can be used to buy Instagram likes, followers and views. Similarly, there are numerous tools that can be utilized to purchase followers for Facebook and organize marketing strategy. As these third-party tools become an important element of online marketing strategy, the need for expertise in these tools has also swollen.
Modern marketers must have the know-how of these tools. Companies value these marketers as they can utilize third-party tools to aid marketing strategies.
Marketing Automation
Marketing is the need of time. It refers to use of software to automate marketing tasks. Marketing automation leads to improved efficiency and effectiveness in marketing strategy. As per ‘Nucleus research’, marketing automation leads to 14.5% rise in sales productivity and 12.2% decrease in market overheads. These statistics are enough to demonstrate the importance of marketing automation in modern marketing strategies.
Kieran F