As important as the hard skills, are the soft skills in Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is something many people want to learn, since it’s an important task for every business owner. Any type of business wants to take advantage of this tool and try to build a solid online presence. And the students I train always try to master as many tasks as possible.
But what I always say is that there is a difference between a Social Media Manager and Social Media Marketing. And this comes down to the Soft Skills one can develop.
Social Media Marketing Vs Social Media Manager
Just because someone can manage Social Media, this doesn’t mean they feel comfortable with the whole process. Pretty much everyone can learn how to create optimised posts, run ads, create helpful content and keep an account active. All these tasks are the technical part of Social Media Marketing.
But, together with the technical stuff (aka hard skills), you also need the Soft Skills in Social Media Marketing. Which will ensure the confidence and critical thinking when you want to promote a brand.
How many times have you seen good content, which didn’t match the current circumstances? How many times did you say that an account failed to take advantage of a hype and, instead, it made things worse?
Or, have you ever tried to learn Social Media Marketing but you thought you are missing something?
It’s not the lack of knowledge that makes the procedures difficult. It’s a matter of Soft Skills.
How to develop Soft Skills in Social Media Marketing
This is something you cannot learn from books or online courses. It comes through daily engagement with the Social Media accounts. The whole experience and confidence are built.
Unless you actually get the hands on experience, you will always feel you lack something. What you can do to help you get started, is to create a new Facebook Page. Find a hobby you love or anything you have knowledge about and create a page. Invite some friends and then start creating content, optimise it and find new ways to make it engaging.
You don’t want to invite all of your friends, just invite a dozen to keep you accountable. Don’t just have it unpublished, since this will make you less willing to put more effort.
The page you create can also be your personal portfolio or about the services you provide. If you wish, you can create it and invite noone, but keep adding fresh content, running live videos or upload stories. This will help you with the content creation process.
Using this method can help you build confidence when posting. Eventually, you will need to invite people, because it’s always more difficult when you know that some people will see your work.
Find more Content Creation tips on the Facebook Group: Content Creation for Social Media
Outsource what you don’t want to handle
No one can handle everything. Social Media Marketing is a big area; some tasks just take away precious time.
You can always outsource the tasks you don’t feel comfortable about, and then concentrate on what you love doing. If, for example, you want to create your own content, but you don’t want to learn how to run effective ads, you can outsource this part.
There are agencies, freelancers or Virtual Assistants that can help with what you don’t want to handle. Remember, time is precious. If you need a lot of time on a task that doesn’t equal the effort you put, then you may want to consider outsourcing it.
My recommendation is not to outsource every task to the agency. It’s essential to know what you will be asking for and keep an eye to what is published, to ensure everything is done according to your agreement.
The great importance of Soft Skills in Social Media Marketing
I have been teaching Social Media Marketing for the last 3 years. What I always say to my students is this: “Unless you implement what you learn, you cannot see tangible results”.
And they are aware of this. In the very beginning, they may consult me before hitting the publish button. But by the end of the courses, they build the confidence needed to handle their Social Media accounts.
Social Media is not (solely) about the knowledge to manage them. It’s also about the soft skills to create relevant content and find fresh ways to engage your community. And this comes from the constant implementation of what you already know!
Go a step forward!
If you need help in creating relevant content for the community you are targeting, you may find the course “Content Creation for Social Media” helpful.
