SOCIAL MEDIA LEAD

As a social media lead you'll manage an organisation's online presence by developing and implementing their social media strategy.

You'll lead campaigns and projects across a range of social media channels, producing engaging content, analysing usage data, building client relationships and facilitating customer service.

Social media strategies often integrate both organic (free content, such as posts, photos, videos, blogs and memes) and paid (advertising) strategies.

Social media management can be a distinct role in larger organisations and is sometimes known as social media coordination. In small and medium-sized companies, the role may be combined with other marketing and communications responsibilities. In agencies, the term social media account lead is often used.

Responsibilities

Job activities vary to a certain extent depending on what you work on. For example, you will be more hands-on. However, as a social media lead, you'll typically need to:

• Design and deliver creative and engaging social media strategies
• Manage the day-to-day handling of all social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, Tumblr and YouTube, adapting content to suit different channels and audiences
• Oversee, plan and deliver content across different platforms using scheduling tools such as Sprinklr, Hootsuite, Buffer, Asana and Later
• Create and/or coordinate original and engaging multimedia content across multiple social platforms
• Develop, launch and manage new competitions and campaigns that promote your organisation and brand
• Form key relationships with influencers across social media platforms
• Undertake audience research
• Manage and facilitate social media communities by responding to social media posts and developing discussions
• Monitor, track, analyse and report on performance on social media platforms using tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook Insights
• Identify consumer trends to help with planning social media campaigns
• Optimise content to further encourage community interaction and engagement
• Research and evaluate the latest tools and techniques in order to find new and better ways of measuring social media activity
• Analyse competitor activity
• Recommend improvements to increase performance
• Set targets to increase brand awareness and increase customer engagement and loyalty
• Manage, motivate and coach junior staff such as social media executives or assistants
• Manage and track budgets for social media activities
• Educate other staff on the use of social media and promote its use within your company (in-house roles)
• Encourage collaboration across teams and departments
• Regularly liaise with clients via telephone, email, conference calls or face-to-face (agency roles).
• Advertisement

Social Media Lead experience requirements

A Social Media Lead role covers various skill sets. They typically need to prove their experience in a range of fields and skills. This can include proven experience in delivering successful social media campaigns, working with a range of social tools, conducting audience and buyer persona research, managing projects and working closely with various departments and teams. Social Media Managers may also be required to have at least one to two years of experience working as a Social Media Executive or Assistant.

Social Media Lead education and training requirements

Although there are no fixed education and training requirements for Social Media Managers, many of these professionals have degrees in related fields, such as marketing, media and communications and business management. Increasingly, universities in the U.K. are also introducing Bachelor Degrees in Social Media Management and Marketing, and various post-graduate courses are also available in the field. Candidates may also choose to complete a qualification through a professional body, such as the Institute of Data and Marketing or The Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Salary: As an assistant or junior social media lead your starting salary is likely to be between £20,000 and £24,000, depending on your experience.