What is the profession of SMM manager and what is it for? What can be the responsibilities of an ideal SMM manager? The functional responsibilities of the SMM manager include.

Daria Golovanova

Reading time: 14 minutes

Perhaps the fastest growing profession on the Internet in recent years is the SMM manager. She has already managed to become overgrown with various stories, misunderstandings and myths, such as that this is a job for schoolchildren, etc. It seems to us that it is time to start debunking them. Let's figure out what is meant in job descriptions, why an SMM is actually needed, and how it should work.

What can be the responsibilities of an ideal SMM manager?

The main responsibilities of the person responsible for SMM in the company may include:

• building a general strategy for the brand's presence in in social networks;
• making this strategy a reality;
• the ability to feel and understand the brand, orient all actions to its target audience and communicate in its language
• reasonable budget management, management and analysis of advertising campaigns;
• the ability to take beautiful pictures. Even on the phone. A small business can no longer be imagined without a beautiful Instagram profile anywhere else, and ordering a lot of shootings is not always the most budgetary option. That is why photo content often has to be implemented by the SMM manager;
• have a sense of beauty and be able to catch trends.
• competent written language, the ability to write and correct text content;
• knowledge of at least the basics of layout and understanding of usability for optimizing the site for social networks is very welcome;
• and, of course, the ability to work with people and the skills of a psychologist are very important;
• and etc.

Ksenia Prokina, Editorial Group Head Sociorama by iConGroup:

“Today, often, different employers define in their own way who an SMM-specialist is in his company and what exactly he should do. In interviews, the conversation often begins like this: "Let's define what we mean by this word." So, one employer sees in this place an employee who, having decided on the goal, splits it into tasks, selects tools, briefs, controls, reports to the SMM director or the head of the marketing department. And the other will indicate tasks such as: writing content, moderating communities, working in tandem with a designer, reporting. But he will not, for example, control the budget, select promotion tools, etc.

The fact is that it is unrealistic to cover the entire pool of tasks and do it by hand. We are now talking, of course, about real professionals, and not about schoolchildren or mothers on maternity leave who were inspired by the opportunity to make money on the Internet. Therefore, ideally, tasks are divided into several employees by specialization, for example, I am responsible for content, moderation and design. "

As you can see, the hands of a good CMM should grow bushy: he should be versatile and ready to perform a wide range of work.

And now let's get down to debunking the myths rooted in our heads.

Myth 1. Working in social networks - for trainees and students

Social media marketing is one of the essential tasks to grow a business of any size. If you think this is some kind of childish task that any schoolchild can perform, then you can put an end to your reputation. Inappropriate positioning, low-quality content, misunderstanding of the strategy and goals - all this, at best, will lead to a decrease in the number of subscribers, and at worst, it will negatively affect the attitude towards the brand and sales.

Myth 2. Social media is the same job 8 hours 5 days a week

Here's another common stereotype. Social media marketing is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, daily. For SMM marketing to have significant authority on social networks, you need to be online at all times. This means that you must be able to use various planning tools, ideally, be able to answer the questions of potential buyers at any time of the day or night (after all, if the Internet never sleeps).

Myth 3. You can't achieve effective and measurable results from an SMM marketer

Measuring the result and effectiveness of work in SMM today also does not seem impossible. There are several options to track the result of the work of an SMM-box:

• Pay attention to reach, user engagement, paid-to-social traffic conversion. And don't forget to track ROI - an indicator of the return on investment for SMM.
• Track the growth rates of the ER - Engagement Index.
• Analyze the place of SMM in associated conversions. Thus, you will be able to assess the employee's return on investment.

Myth 4. All work is just asking friends and acquaintances to like posts to increase the level of social presence.

Experienced SMMs won't ask friends and family to like their posts all the time. They know very well that they will not be able to deceive the program that calculates the activity coefficient. It is a little more complicated than users are used to thinking. This is why it is so important to develop creative posts and interact with a large number of audiences.

Myth 5: We don't need it at all

Social media is not good for our industry. " Many people think so. One of the most common questions in our courses is what to write about, because we are from B2B. Especially B2B manufacturing companies such as construction, industry, etc.

However, while they and their B2B partners do not understand how to implement social media, their employees are still socially active people, and they also like to surf the networks, watch news on interesting topics, including their professional directionality. Look around: from kids to grandparents, everyone is on social media these days.

A common mistake of B2B companies is to view their customers as just other companies, and not as people who work for them, who are as socially accessible as everyone else.

In principle, this is possible. But only in the presence of a unique product and with initially ideally developed marketing.

Myth 6. The demand for SMM specialists has already been formed

As we can see in the graph, the demand for SMM specialists began to increase significantly since January 2016, and the number of vacancies has almost doubled, as a result of which competition is intensifying.

Myth 7. An SMM should be cheap.

But, when starting to work with SMM, it is extremely important to understand that a one-time promotion will give absolutely nothing to a business. SMM must be integrated into the marketing communications system for any type of business, and it is advisable to wait for the result only when carrying out regular work.

Of course, you can pay a specialist even less, but in this case, you should not expect a predicted result, it can turn out to be zero. Many employers continue to turn to freelancers who are ready to “make SMM for $ 200”, but after 1-2 months of spent time, money and nerves, they turn to professionals for help.

Therefore, if you are really ready to spend some funds one-time, it is better to go through a good intensive SMM, in order to understand the big picture, and what your SMM manager should be directly involved in. Such a course will give you a clear understanding of where, on what and with what efficiency your budgets and paid "man-hours" will be spent.

Myth 8. Doesn't an SMM-man need to have many subscribers himself?

If you decide to communicate through the manager's personal page, then it can become another channel of communication with clients. In addition to posting, he, ideally, can become an influencer, able to tell your customers everything about the company, products, and in a friendly manner. After all, if you love your project, you will not be ashamed to tell your friends about it, otherwise, you should not take it up.

However, there are many professional SMMs who, on the contrary, appear minimally on social networks. Perhaps it is the satiety of social networks.

The most correct way to communicate with a client in this case is to form a separate working page. After all, many people want to tell everything honestly on their page, for example, about a brand. But in this case, the manager has no right to represent his company with such messages on the wall.

Myth 9. An SMM guy can do everything.

Very often, they can demand anything from a smr. - and calculate budgets and engage in promotion, and draw, and dance, etc. But as a rule, people who claim that they can do all this are definitely sagging in something.

It is important to decide what work can be done inhouse, and what can be trusted simply to control the SMM-manager. For example, write content within a brand, and promote it with a contractor. Or vice versa.

Of course, SMM is a complex topic. There are really big budgets here, every day something changes and new things are invented.

SMM managers, and not only - write in the comments your comments and additions, what stereotypes do you face in your work?

Hello my dear readers! Rimma Belyakina with you. On the pages of the blog site, we talk about remote work and the opportunities that it provides. Internet technologies are not even the future, they are a confident present.

More zealous and enterprising businessmen began to think about introducing business into the Internet space and attracting consumers to their goods or services in social networks.

Do you think about it too? Looking for ways to sell your product? Then you definitely need to know what SMM is and how it works. We will consider this in more detail in this article. Let's also talk about what tasks can be solved with the help of SMM, about its advantages and how to learn SMM promotion.

Much has been written about the role of social networks in our lives. And if you put everything together, you would probably get a neat ledger, a kind of treatise on how 70 - 80% of all mankind spend their second, parallel to real, virtual life in them.

And if we associate social networks with life, albeit virtual, we mean, if not all, then many important aspects of this very life: hobbies and entertainment, study and work, purchases and sales. That is, everything that we previously had only in real life has smoothly migrated into the virtual one.

SMM: deciphering the abbreviation and parsing the essence

What does SMM mean? It is also called social marketing or online marketing. This concept came into our use from of English language(“Social Media Marketing” literally means “social media marketing”) and is the process of attracting interest to any Internet resource through social platforms.

In other words, this is a mechanism for attracting traffic, that is, the flow of visitors (they are potential consumers), to a brand, service or product through social networks.

To put it even simpler: you are a businessman (real or conventional), you want to do business on the Internet, choose a social platform for this, go there with your product, define your target audience and offer it your product in all possible ways.

And if you want to succeed in Internet entrepreneurship, you definitely need to be present on a social platform, take part in communicating with users of this social network and the selection of interesting, useful and constantly changing content on the topic of your product, so that interest in it does not disappear. This is the whole "salt", it is the essence, SMM-promotion.

Tasks of SMM management

It is clear that SMM is not done by itself, there is a person behind this process. They call him differently: smm-manager, SMM-manager, SMM-specialist, internet marketer. The essence of this does not change, and the tasks are the same in any case:

1. Determine the target audience and study its interests.
2. Conduct a niche analysis: on which platform is it better to promote the brand, in what ways and tools.
3. To achieve an increase in the audience through a set of events, which includes advertising, promotions, contests, and sweepstakes.
4. Work on creating the company's image: conduct a PR campaign, track feedback, eliminate negativity.
5. Monitor the promotion process: analysis of statistics, dynamics.

I have listed only the main tasks of SMM management, but, as you understand, this is not the whole list, since each company pursues its own interests and sets its own tasks.

SMM in action: stages of promotion

SMM promotion is not an easy job, carried out in several stages:

1. Choosing a site for your target audience. Why might this be important? Because there are already quite a lot of social networks, and each has its own contingent. Accordingly, their interests are different.
2. Placement of the communication platform. Having decided on the social network, it is important to think over the place of gathering the audience for communication. What could it be? A specially created group, or a community, or a public, or your account. The main thing is not in this, but in the fact that this site is constantly working, giving the audience “bread and circuses,” that is, the content it needs. And this is the next stage.
3. Content creation and placement. It should be not only interesting and useful, but also viral, that is, one that is liked and shared. To promote your public faster, you need to invest money and launch ads.
4. Making a profit or monetizing a project. The most difficult and controversial stage, since the main goal of the smr is to ensure that the bulk of the subscribers are transferred to the customer's site and make them consumers. Here, as you are lucky. There are various cases of monetization, both successful and exactly the opposite: you can achieve good earnings on a group with a number of subscribers of 3-5 thousand, or you can get “mere pennies” from groups of “hundred thousand”.

Here, perhaps, it will be useful to remind about the development of the correct strategy and tactics for the successful implementation of the project. And also that in each case, except for the plan, you need its own mechanisms and tools.

CMM tools

This paragraph of the article will be the shortest, because I have already written about Internet marketing tools and I do not want to repeat myself. You can read about this in my previous article on. There, by the way, you can watch a video with a detailed analysis of all SMM tools and find out how it all works.

I also advise you to refer to another of my earlier article "", where you can get a lot useful information and even life hacks on this topic. Do not be lazy to do it. After all, your success will depend on how effectively you own SMM tools.

Pros and cons of SMM

Any industry has its pros and cons, and before starting any business, you need to weigh the pros and cons. Let's now consider what priorities social marketing gives and whether it is worth doing it at all.

So, here are the benefits social marketing gurus put forward to the top positions:

1. Demand. The demand for the services of SMM specialists is growing steadily.
2. Freelance work. Having understood IT-technologies and mastered SMM-mechanisms, you will not be able to “sweat” in the office. Many people choose to work from home.
3. Creative path. An opportunity to show all your hidden talents.
4. Huge audience of potential customers: after all, social networks have millions of users.
5. Minimum start-up costs and high payback after promotion.
6. A solid reward for quality promotion services. The minimum cost of one SMM project is from 30,000 rubles.

What about the downsides? I would prefer to call them the difficulties that will have to be faced in the course of work. And first of all it is:

1. Selection of content that favorably illustrates the promoted product. It takes a rich imagination, inherent in few, and a considerable amount of time to find the right material and arrange it.
2. Working with advertising. Investments are most likely indispensable. You will have to spend money on advertising the product, and this will still need to be learned.
3. Competition. Business is taking a firm step towards the Internet. Competition also goes there.

How to become an SMM specialist?

Since the specialty under consideration would be more correct to characterize not as narrowly focused, but rather as broad-based, then a lot of knowledge and skills that a smr should have is required.

What knowledge and skills should an SMM worker have?

It is clear that he must know the basics of marketing first, but also:

• understand information technology,
• know the tools of media automation and be able to use them,
• know the features of community management,
• have analytical skills,
• understand and be able to use targeted and other types of advertising,
• have communication skills,
• be able to establish contacts and interest,
• be creative: be able to create engaging viral content,
• be able to develop and apply in practice strategies to attract an audience from social networks to the customer's website.

Self-organization and self-discipline are important qualities. If a specialist needs a kick from his boss, then this is a bad specialist. However, excessive initiative is also superfluous. She, as you know, can be “punishable”. It is important to “find a middle ground” so as not to “burn out”.

Where can you learn this?

Social marketing can be learned in specialized online schools or courses, of which there are plenty on the Internet. In a separate article, we have compiled a selection and review of the best CMM courses for you.

Of these, we can single out the TOP-3 of the best:

• Course from the ConvertMonster project.
• Three-month course "CMM-manager" from the online university Netology.
• The "SMM-manager" course from Geekbrains portal and Mail.ru company.

As you can see, there are options, there are many of them, since progress does not stand still. Those wishing to study science can only "roll up their sleeves" and get down to business. Well, when you “grind your teeth on this granite”, in the same way and without difficulty you will find something to your liking in the online space, since this business is modern, relevant, and profitable.

Summing up

So, we looked at what SMM is. I have tried to present the material as simply as possible. I hope it was clear.

Summarizing all of the above, we can draw a simple conclusion: SMM is trending today. It's difficult but effective method management of goods turnover and relationships in the network. This is a varied and promising work that suits energetic, pragmatic, time-stepping people.

In the next article, we will take a closer look at the profession of an SMM manager. Keep for updates.

I would like to believe and know that the article was useful and helped in some way. One way or another, I am waiting for your feedback, comments, suggestions. Let's discuss. Until then. And see you soon.

SMM manager- a specialist in SMM (Social Media Marketing), a set of measures to promote websites, goods or services using social media, which include: blogs; social media; thematic Internet resources class Web 2.0 The profession is suitable for those who are interested in the Russian language and literature and social studies (see the choice of a profession by interest in school subjects).

Short description

The profession of an SMM manager is at the intersection of marketing and IT, therefore, a specialist is required to have high computer literacy in the field of creating and filling sites, knowledge of marketing communications strategy, basic knowledge of programming languages ​​and graphic editors, online applications and tools.

Why do you need SMM?

SMM promotion is an extremely dynamic process, during which it is necessary to constantly monitor the changing interests of the audience and the emergence of new trends.

Features of the profession

What does an SMM manager do:

• strategy development - defining the target audience and studying its interests, behavior, searching for sites with a high concentration of the target audience, developing a customer loyalty system, integrating SMM activity into the general marketing strategy of the company;
• advertising management - conducting contests, flash mobs, developing applications for social networks, creating channels on video hosting;
• reputation management - collection feedback from the target audience and reaction to comments, influence on the public through PR materials in social networks;
• community management - directing the discussion in the right direction, increasing user activity in communities, neutralizing negative users, organizing a support service through social networks;
• maintaining accounts and their moderation in all social networks;
• work with contractors (freelancers);
• content management - adaptation of branded content to the format of a blog or video hosting, writing texts for the format of a social network, sending out releases, creating scripts for videos;
• work with interfaces - integration of the site with social networks and social networks with an electronic store, creating incentives for joining, creating start pages and tabs;
• working with opinion leaders and using "agents of influence" in social networks - identifying opinion leaders of the target audience and organizing events for them;
• monitoring and analysis;
• creation, support and promotion of corporate accounts in blog services
• hidden marketing and blog advertising.

Into functional SMM responsibilities-the manager includes:

Pros and cons of the profession of SMM manager

Pros:

• A demanded job, as the demand in the market for social media marketing services is constantly growing;
• loyal attitude of users versus negative attitude to direct advertising of goods and services;
• a large-scale opportunity to accurately select the target audience;
• low cost of promotions;
• the swift word of mouth effect.

Minuses:

SMM manager training

Offline marketing principles apply to online marketing as well. Along with this, serious knowledge in the field of Internet marketing is welcomed, which can be obtained at the appropriate courses: Yandex seminars on Internet advertising, the Internet and Business conference, etc.

Practical intensive course "SMM manager" SMM Digital Agency with 17 years of experience. All the most important, without water. Only the necessary materials, practice, and detailed analysis cases. Upon completion of the course, you will receive a certificate. Individual check of homework by the teacher. You can study in a convenient place, from a mobile phone, tablet or laptop. On the course, you get theory plus homework: practicing new skills in practice, as well as a handout with a list of useful books, podcasts, YouTuBe and Telegram channels. The course is taught by practicing specialists in Internet marketing for over 5 years.

Universities

Due to the novelty of this profession, this particular specialty is not taught in any university. But university graduates in the specialties: journalism, mathematics, physics or cybernetics, and in particular, marketing, successfully work in this area.

You can become a marketing specialist and get real marketing thinking by enrolling in the leading universities in the capital:

State University of Management (GUU)

Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics (MESI),

Russian Academy of Economics. G.V. Plekhanov (Russian Economic Academy named after G.V. PLEKHANOV)

Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU)

Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN).

The specialty "Marketing" is also available in many non-state universities: in the Moscow International Higher School of Business "MIRBIS", the International Academy of Marketing and Management ("MAMARMEN"), the Moscow Academy of Finance and Industry (MFPA), the International Academy of Business and Management (MABiU) and dr.

Place of work

Online shopping projects using the E-Commerce Marketplace system (mediation between shops and customers); firms that use the Internet to conduct important marketing campaigns to promote their products.

SMM manager salary

Salary on 04/22/2019

Russia 15000-70000 ₽

Moscow 40,000-92,000 ₽

The salary level depends on the qualification level of the specialist, the scale of the project and the breadth of functional responsibilities, and also has regional dependence.

Career Steps and Prospects

In the future, a good specialist can lead the department of Internet projects in a large business, take a leadership position in a specialized company, or open his own Internet agency.

Portrait and types of SMM managers:

There are several types of specialists in this area:

1. Moderators of the Vkontakte group,Goodknowledgeable the peculiarities of their group and the format of communication in it, but they may not be familiar with other sites. As a rule, they are young and work for the future. They are not able to create an active group from scratch on the desired topic and develop a digital strategy.

2. LJ-ists,blogging for many years. They have experience in promoting blogs in LiveJournal up to “thousand” by a variety of methods, work in communities, offer blog posts and hold contests. As a rule, they don't know how to work on Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter. They do not have the skills to prepare promotional commercial offers for agencies or clients.

3. Former or current seo-optimizers, smo-schnicks,which They actively use automated methods, are able to "catch up traffic", optimize blogs, own a database of virtuals at all sites. They approach the issue of smm management with seo thinking in the form of spam, mailings, etc.

4. Modest but capable performers,able to clearly perform the assigned task. They usually work as freelancers for a small fee. They competently monitor, search for the necessary information, communicate skillfully on forums, but are not strong in matters of self-promotion.

5. Project Executing Managers in Agencieswith experience inPR-companies that navigate social media passably.

6. Stars with a marketing mindset, extensive experience in the market, able to sell, lead projects, develop a strategy, manage a team of employees, blog and conference. They have their own projects with high results.

7. Digital-creator- super pro at the level of the owner of your own agency or the head of the coolest company

We have released a new book, Content Marketing on Social Media: How to Get Into the Heads of Subscribers and Fall in Love with Your Brand.

An SMM manager is a specialist who, his task is to draw people's attention to the promoted brand and convert them into customers.

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The main secrets of such an expert:

• She is constantly learning.
• Knows the secret tricks of social media.
• Masterfully owns auxiliary tools in order to quickly and efficiently do his job.
• Knows how to correctly express thoughts and your audience likes it.
• Tracks trends.
• Knows psychology.

SMM manager - who is this: functions, tasks

• You wrote the text - topic, title, content of the post (1 hour).
• Then they looked for a photo (1.5 hours - for a long time they could not choose what they needed).
• We picked up hashtags (1 hour and only because we didn't bother with it too much).
• We came up with the design, because it is important to hook people.
• Posted your masterpiece on the social network.
• They were waiting for an explosion of likes, comments, reposts.

Having not received the desired reaction, you made a new publication unwillingly. And then another one, etc. - then every day, then every other day, then once a week. But the subscribers did not increase, only you and your mother liked you, and sales from social networks began to seem like something unreal, like unicorns or children.

You realized that you are wasting a lot of time on what is needed, but you don’t like it (it doesn’t work, doesn’t work, and in general, who invented it). And they decided to entrust this matter to a specialist.

What does an SMM manager do

Firstly, it saves you time, effort and nerves. This person understands how your potential buyers behave on social networks, so he knows how to attract them. He learned to do the job well. And it doesn't matter if he went through trainings or got bumps for years - he has more experience and knowledge than you.

He is not upset by the lack of likes in publics, because he knows how to stir people up, get them moving and shake up communication. Engage the audience in some kind of social process.

Secondly, it creates content and leads a dialogue with your potential customers. Thanks to this, the recognition of your brand and product grows, more people come to the site and get into the funnel. He also gains their trust for you.

Thirdly, he does everything professionally. Starting from the writing of the text, ending with the time of publication. He is aware of any changes on your page, he understands trends, his actions give results. Even before the start, you should discuss your wishes, goals and methods with the SMM.

Fourth, he constantly reviews his work and looks for ways to make it better. This is already a sign of a real pro who understands that his task is to bring money to the client.

For this, you pay him a salary, qualitatively delegating an important task, the fulfillment of which helps your business to grow.

SMM manager: salary as the price of success

On average, the salary of an SMM specialist starts at 40,000 rubles. This is according to message boards. But this figure can either decrease or increase depending on various factors:

• Region.
• Knowledge, experience, duties of a specialist.
• Work in the office or remotely.
• The level of "immersion" in the customer's business.

The larger the amount of work, the higher the salary of an SMM manager. It is worth considering the fact that the offer on the market from such applicants is very high. This gives employers a reason to offer lower service fees.

Therefore, it is important for a person who maintains social media accounts for companies:

• Constantly improve.
• Find ways to get better results with less cost.
• To show in every possible way that the employer gets more benefit in his person than he pays for it.

Plus, working remotely, you can take not one project, but several. Especially if you masterfully own various tools that simplify your work.

What you need to know to become an SMM manager

At first glance, it may seem that there is nothing difficult in such work. But if you dig deeper, it turns out that the software specialist is a real universal soldier. He should understand:

1. The laws of social networks, because each of them has its own specifics and must be taken into account.
2. Copywriting to prepare posts and engage your audience.
3. Work with image processing programs and create catchy images for published publications.
4. Psychology, in order to know how to behave with subscribers and what they need to be given in order to push them to a certain action.
5. Strategic planning and business processes, because he needs to understand where to go and what to broadcast.
6. Building and increasing brand awareness based on information about the company that is being promoted.
7. Analytics - to see what the numbers show, know how to assess their dynamics and how to adjust the promotion strategy so that the indicators change for the better.

These are the necessary skills that will allow you to perform the duties of an SMM manager in a quality manner. But besides this, it is also important to be a literate, erudite person with an excellent sense of humor.

How to become an SMM manager

Although this profession is in great demand, there is no educational institution where you can learn it. Therefore, there are two ways to become an SMM specialist:

• To yourself - it's free and long.
• Learn from those who have already achieved success in this area.

When mastering the right skills, focus on the following areas:

• Marketing.
• Basics of Web Design.

It is important to understand:

• How people behave on the Internet.
• What drives them.
• How to get their attention.
• Why do they like, comment, repost, subscribe to pages.
• How to interest them and send them to the customer's website.

• Create accounts and for what purpose they are intended.
• Manage client pages: prepare posts, develop a promotion strategy, work with visual content, track the reaction of subscribers, read statistics.
• Conduct an audit of social networks in order to prescribe a strategy for further actions and improvement of performance.
• Launch advertising on selected sites and get the maximum result from it.
• Use content marketing to achieve your goals.

Grow constantly, because social media is a very dynamic environment. Therefore, regularly read books, posts of opinion leaders (and foreign ones as well), go to training courses and just be in trend. Understand how everything works here in order to be able to convey your vision to the client, because he relies on you like a pro.

How does an SMM's work begin

When you dive into a new project as an SMM specialist, carefully study the information about the company or person that you will be promoting. You must clearly understand:

• What exactly do you suggest.
• What is its main feature.
• What problems does it solve.

• Become more popular.
• Gather a group of like-minded people in one place and educate "fans" of the brand.
• Drive more traffic to your website or blog.
• Sell.

Now it's important to understand who your target audience is. Make a detailed portrait of the person you will be targeting when posting on social networks:

• Is it a man or a woman.
• How old is he.
• Where does he live.
• What are you interested in.
• What is his marital status.
• Does he have children.
• Who works and how much does he earn
  What problems does he have and why does he need to solve them.

Knowing this information about potential customers, you can easily determine which social networks these people spend the most time on and are most active. It is on these sites that you have to work.

• Study their pages carefully and keep links to them for periodic monitoring.
• What kind of content they post.
• How people react to it.
• What you yourself would have done differently.

After collecting this data, you will draw up a strategy for promoting the company / brand on the selected sites, you will be able to develop a content plan for the first 2 weeks and decide on the frequency and time of publication.

This is enough to get you started. After about a month, analyze the results. Perhaps the statistics will show that it is worth adjusting the content plan, because you are not attracting the right audience. Track numbers over time and learn to adapt to the reaction of potential customers. Over time, you will figure out in practice how to become an SMM specialist.

Maintaining company and brand pages on social networks has long gone beyond publishing cute quotes and funny cats. This task has become a complex of targeted actions that help to attract traffic to the client's site and "educate" buyers for him. The better you do it, the more valuable you are to your customers.

Build your knowledge, experience and competitive advantage to become a truly in-demand social media master.

Welcome to the InetSovety.ru blog. In this article, you will learn who an SMM manager is, what he does and how to master this Internet profession. We all use the Internet for our own purposes, but we cannot influence the system in any way. One of the most popular places where all participants gather virtual reality are social networks. Ordinary users use all their capabilities, including the purchase of all kinds of goods.

However, no one thinks about where these opportunities come from, that is, who gives them. And the SMM specialist is engaged in this. Who is this, what is he doing, what is he for? Let's take a look at these questions in turn.

The concept of a SMM specialist and the tasks that he solves

Who is an SMM manager and what does he do? First, let's understand the very concept of HMM.

Decoding SMM sounds like Social Media Marketing, or social media marketing. This is an integral part of promoting the interests of companies through the Internet, or rather through social networks (personal pages, groups). All these activities are dealt with by the SMMshchik.

It should be noted right away that the services of such a specialist are not cheap at all, so if you are just starting to run your business, you will need to prepare for the upcoming financial expenses. However, believe that thanks to the services of such a worker, you can get much more than you spent in the beginning.

So who is this SMM specialist? Let's figure it out.

Features of the profession

A CMM manager is a person who promotes a business. However, this is a very painstaking work, so if at first glance it seems to you that working in social networks or blogs is easy, then this is not so. In fact, a SMM specialist must also solve many other tasks, namely:

• study the needs, interests, tastes of the audience, on the basis of which a strategy for the further development of the project is built;
• respond to user requests, study comments, and then respond to them;
• conduct various events to attract new customers - contests, quizzes;
• develop interesting internet applications for social networks;
• create channels on various video hosting sites;
• SMM manager is responsible for advertising campaigns aimed at promoting business on the Internet;
• maintain all accounts or communities associated with the company, as well as moderate them;
• work with freelancers;
• optimize content for the needs of a blog or community on a social network.

But this is not all that the SMM manager does. Moreover, these items are not his responsibilities. These are only the tasks that such a specialist faces. In addition to them, he is engaged in:

• community management;
• work with interfaces of sites, groups in social networks, etc.;
• creating a start page and additional tabs on the pages of the project that he is leading;
• monitoring and analysis of the functioning of all implemented systems;
• highlighting leaders among the target audience, and ensuring close interaction with them;
• creation and maintenance of corporate accounts on social networks, or blogs;
• conducting advertising and marketing moves, but in a veiled form.

That is, if we consider the question of who an SMM manager is from a different angle, then we can definitely say that this is a universal specialist who combines skills:

• marketer;
• advertiser;
• moderator;
• administrator;
• the official representative of the company.

Now you know who an SMM specialist is and what tasks he solves. However, this is not all, since, in addition to solving these tasks, such an employee also has a number of responsibilities. Let's take a look at them.

Professional duties of an SMM specialist

Duties SMM manager rather voluminous, so this should be a responsible person, self-confident, able to make the right decisions and recognize beneficial partners in people.

• forms and promotes SMM products;
• deals with pricing;
• conducts advertising campaigns on social networks;
• finds new clients, while continuing to maintain partnerships with current ones;
• analyzes the activities of competing companies;
• studies new trends in a particular area of ​​business, and implements them into his project;
• creates comments with which you can maintain a good image of the company;
• manages various projects.

That's all the responsibilities of an SMM manager. At first glance, it may seem that this is all very difficult, and indeed: if you decide to connect your life with promotion in social networks, then be prepared for the fact that at first you will have to overcome some difficulties. However, you will soon get used to it, and it will be much easier and more interesting for you to perform the functions of an SMM specialist.

Advantages and disadvantages of the SMM profession

An SMM manager is a very difficult profession, which, in addition to a lot of advantages, has its own negative sides. But first, let's look at the main advantages of this position.

1. Great demand for SMM services, due to the rapid development of marketing in social networks.
2. More trusting and respectful user experience. Unlike an advertising worker, to whom quite often people express an outright antipathy, to this employee reveal much more trust. The SMM manager of social networks has nothing to do with direct advertising, but does all this covertly, carefully and competently, and most importantly, unobtrusively.
3. A wide range of users to create a target audience.
4. The advertising price is relatively low.
5. The ability to look for new clients.

There is only one minus of this profession, but it adds a significant fly in the ointment to the barrel of honey. Due to the fact that an SMM specialist is a person, roughly speaking, free (that is, he is often a freelancer), potential employers, unfortunately, cannot always imagine the scope of work he is doing. Accordingly, they may underestimate its importance in the world of business on social networks, which will negatively affect the salary of such an employee. Otherwise, this profession is one big plus.

Requirements for the SMM manager

Understanding and knowing who this SMM specialist is and what he does is not enough to decide whether you are ready for all the difficulties associated with this profession. In addition, you should be aware of what knowledge and skills such an employee has. Without this, you will not be able to work in this position.

As for personal qualities, the SMM should have:

• communication skills, that is, to be sociable and have a large vocabulary;
• creativity, that is, have a lot of creativity;
• desire to reach new heights;
• thirst for self-improvement;
• the ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the information received;
• the ability to think systematically, logically and consistently;
• such a character trait as self-organization;
• the ability to orient oneself and orient others to achieve positive results from joint activities;
• independence;
• the ability to quickly and efficiently solve assigned tasks;
• the ability to creatively and easily express your thoughts, and at the same time convey them to other users;
• a good sense of humor (this quality will definitely come in handy when creating an advertising campaign).

In principle, these are all the requirements for such an employee as an SMM worker. If you are confident that you will cope with all the tasks set, and you have all of the above qualities and skills, then it will not be difficult for you to overcome the path up the career ladder.

How and where can you learn a profession?

How to become an SMM specialist? First of all, you must master:

• the basics of creating and promoting contextual advertising Google Edwards and Yandex Direct;
• the essence of working with Internet statistics and web analytics;
• Internet communication skills;
• basic rules for working in social networks;
• SEO rules;
• basics and;
• web technologies.

SMM manager training can be taken at many universities and institutes in Russia. Of course, most of them are located in Moscow, and the most popular educational institutions are:

1. National Research University Higher School of Economics.
2. Russian State University of Oil and Gas named after Gubkin.
3. MGUMO MFA of Russia.
4. MSTU named after Bauman (the so-called "baumanka"), etc.

It should be noted right away that these educational institutions do not teach how to become an SMM specialist. However, they will be able to give you all the necessary knowledge in the field of marketing and the exact sciences, which you will then be able to successfully use in order to start working in social networks as an SMM.

You can get the necessary skills to promote your business on social networks by signing up for online training at the University of Internet Professions Netology .

Career advancement

You must remember that at first, SMM for beginners can be very difficult at times. You will have to go through many steps that will gradually lead you up the career ladder to the coveted position. But first you have to work:

• moderator in a group on the vastness of social networks;
• leading their blog on the Internet;
• SEO optimizer;
• freelancer, copywriter, web designer;
• advertiser or PR man.

Of course, in order to become an SMM, it is not at all necessary to get a job for each position (or study at an institute) separately. Nothing prevents you, while working in one of these areas, to simultaneously study another. Thus, you will save time and money, because you will know exactly what qualities and skills such a specialist as an SMM manager combines in himself.