What is the SMM profession
SMM marketers are now a much sought-after profession. Many companies are involved in online advertising campaigns and that is why they need such professionals. Thus, the work of an SMM marketer can bring a stable and decent income. But first, you should study the basic features of this modern profession.
What SMM marketers do
It is worth understanding that SMM managers work not only in popular social networks. They must work on the following platforms:
- Review and review sites and platforms.
- Social bookmarking services.
- Platforms for sharing media content and for short posts.
In any case, the SMM specialist is promoting the company’s brand, but he or she is doing so with the specifics of the particular site in mind. The fact that, if you take for example Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, then even these domestic social networks have a lot of differences in terms of promotion.
It is important to understand that the SMM-specialist must be able to do a lot. He needs to master the skills of a general marketer, a tagger, a designer, a copywriter and a PR specialist. This does not mean that he has to apply all these skills on a particular site. But in order to get a good offer from an employer, it is advisable to know as much as possible.
The main areas of work of the SMM-manager
If we’re talking about beginners, it’s enough for them to know how to lead the company’s official groups. As for true professionals, they are engaged in promotion in several stages:
- Development of a strategy. First, the specialist collects the most detailed information about the target audience. He needs to know all its preferences and weaknesses. After that, builds a strategy for communicating with the audience, based on which the content is formed. In addition, an analysis of the competitors is conducted to find out their strengths and weaknesses.
- Next, a content plan is prepared. It describes the order in which the posts are published and their frequency. Usually the content plan is developed for a month. And content in the community is published several times a day.
- Content Creation. The core of every post is text. It is what is needed to attract the audience, so it should be informative and interesting. An SMM-specialist can create the text himself or engage a copywriter to do so. In addition, it is worth paying attention to the design of the post. In addition to the text in it may be present pictures. But they must be consistent with the content and be of high quality. In large companies, the design of posts is handled separately by a graphic designer.
- Promotion. Performed in several methods. For promotion, targeting, interaction with popular bloggers, work with affiliate sites and the creation of viral content can be used. All this increases attention to the brand and promotes it.
Also, it is worth paying attention to communicating with your audience. Feedback is very important for creating a positive image of the company. You should promptly respond to users’ questions as well as actively participate in discussions.
Main advantages and disadvantages of working as an SMM-specialist
The main advantages of the job are:
- The demand for the specialty, the demand for which is constantly growing.
- Good pay for interesting and creative work.
- Ability to further work in related fields.
- Not necessarily higher education. You can just take courses or learn everything on their own.
- Possibility to work in free mode and remotely.
It is worth understanding that such work has certain disadvantages. The main ones are:
- The level of salary is directly related to experience.
- Different employers have different requirements for the employee.
- Often the result of the job is not dependent on the manager.