Are you looking for a reliable social media management professional who will work with you to create and manage your social media channels so that they work well for your business? You might want to consider getting a professional with social media degree.
Hiring someone with a masters in communication could be exactly what your business needs when it comes to social media and content marketing.
Communications graduates can take care of your social media accounts to ensure you have a consistent and high-quality voice across the social landscape. Whether you need Facebook management, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or even LinkedIn management, getting in the experts will help you to succeed.
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What Are Social Media Management Services?
Social media specialists are marketers who have a specific set of skills when it comes to all things online and content marketing. They will usually have a masters in communications and will have experience in writing and planning social media campaigns designed to convert.
A masters in communications degree course teaches a professional approach to creating posts, managing communities, and building a social presence online for each and every business. Graduates will have the skills to help you build a more impressive social media presence, maximizing your audience’s potential, and generating those leads or sales for your business.
Hiring a professional who has a masters in communication ensures that they are an all-round marketer, meaning they have a better understanding of how social media will sit in your business as part of your entire marketing strategy.
Why a Masters In Communications?
Social media is a changing world, it is no longer about just creating the odd post for the odd platform. Social media professionals need to be communications experts who understand good copywriting, basic graphic design, public relations, some video editing, and even a touch of psychology!
A masters in communications course teaches students to think critically and to think on their feet, a skill that is well needed by the all-round social media professional today.
Graduates from a masters in communications course have learnt how to scale up where necessary, as well as covering the basics such as creating a strategy, scheduling and posting, and even social media advertising and influencer engagement.
Content Is King
A masters in communications graduate will know how difficult it is to stand out from the crowd. Especially in crowded spaces like Facebook, TikTok or Instagram.
There are many ways to build an audience on social media, but like most things, the best way is to build a legitimate audience of dedicated fans and followers.
They will help you do just that by creating bespoke content for your channels, scheduling your content so that it lands at the right time for your audience, and they will help you create social adverts to put your content in front of the right people.
If you are looking for something a little deeper, many graduates will have experience in bespoke photography and videography, so you can reach your audience with more creative social media content that stands out from the competition.
Great content marketing usually involves using your own images and your own assets such as video and photography. This kind of personal touch will help you to show what your business is really about – giving your audience a look at life behind the scenes of your business, bringing a little human touch to your social media accounts.
As anyone who has done a masters in communications knows, a good marketing campaign tells a story and that is exactly what you want to do with your social accounts – tell your story to the world.
Ads and Analysis
Learning how to use advertising tools and analysis is tough, but it can be the key to giving you the chance to reach a wider audience for a relatively small investment.
Social advertising is an incredibly powerful tool in the content marketer’s arsenal. Social ads will allow you to really target an audience quite specifically.
Someone with a masters in communication will be able to ensure that you do not waste money advertising to people who just are not interested in your products and ensure that your budget is spent on those who are likely to be interested.
Graduates from a masters in communications program also learn how to provide analytics, helping you to see how well your social media channels are doing over time and to identify any areas that may need work to ensure they are giving you the best return on investment (ROI).
Analytics can be challenging to read with a lot of information to take in, but as they learn how to create clear and straightforward reporting, making some suggestions on where to improve, and how to work with all kinds of clients, masters in communications graduates are in a great position to take your business further across social media.
What Should a Professional Social Media Manager Be Able to Do?
Different service levels have different things included with them, depending on your business needs and the skills and experience of the professional in question.
During a masters in communications degree program, graduates learn the skills to create engaging content marketing from across a wide spectrum of industries, learning how to build audiences, and keep followers engaged.
Here is a quick breakdown of what might be included in standard professional social media management packages.
Post Creation
At every level of social packages, you should be offered post creation. This process is straightforward and as easy for you to approve as possible.
Graduates from a masters in communications program will be skilled copywriters who will work on as many posts as needed for you each week, ensuring that each one has a clear call to action and a definitive purpose.
They should work with you to get your tone of voice right because your tone of voice is your business’ way of communicating with your customers. Every post they write should sound like it has come directly from you.
Visual Content
Social media is now a very visual place. From photos to videos, designed infographics to gifs. Not every business is the same or wants to attract the same audience, this means that not every type of visual is right all of the time.
Your social media professional should be able to work with you to make sure every post looks as good as it sounds and that it has the best eye-catching visual possible.
Videos
The world of social media is always moving incredibly quickly. Video content is fast becoming the norm and expected by audiences across practically every industry.
To keep up with this trend, many courses and professionals are investing heavily in their video skills and the right kit to be able to create engaging social videos for your channels.
Professionals will usually either use stock video, video that you have shot and sent to them, or they may be able to offer a videography service to help you capture some unique videography of your business.
Timing and Approval
During a masters in communications course, students learn the importance of getting your posts out at the right time, and they also learn that not every business is the same.
Graduates will be able to work with you and your analytics reports to decide on the best times for your posts to go out to your audience, making sure you reach as many people as possible to maximize engagement and click through.
Social Advertising
The world of social media has changed rapidly over the last few years, and if you are not investing in social media advertising, there is a big chance you are missing out on reaching your biggest potential audience.
There are three main metrics that you should focus on, these are:
- Reach – the number of people who are seeing your posts.
- Engagement – likes, comments, and all other kinds of engagement from your audience.
- Website Traffic – clicks through to your website or a specifically designed landing page. This is especially useful for promotions and other content designed to drive traffic specifically.
Social media advertising experts will work with you to make sure they create adverts that will do the job they are intended to do. That might include building an audience, selling products, boosting engagement, getting people to sign up for an event, or a myriad of other reasons.
Some of the advertising campaigns you may wish to consider include:
- Product Sales – using social media advertising to increase your product sales. Whether that is over specific sites such as Facebook or Instagram, or through a content marketing strategy that includes things like email marketing and influencer engagement.
- Lead Generation – using social media ads to put your business in front of those who are most likely to need it and generating hot leads for you to follow up with later.
- App Installs – your apps need users, and social media professionals should be able to help you to find those users and get your app installed by using ads to target the right people at the right time.
Community Management
Building a social media audience is not as easy as it once was. These days it is more about managing the community than it is creating pretty content.
Graduates from a social media degree masters in communications program will be experts in knowing how to respond to people in the right way, how to answer questions publicly, how to handle complaints, and, of course, the art of dropping a gif or two in the comments!
Students on a masters in communications program learn to engage with all kinds of communities through specific classes in public relations and professional readiness.
To help manage your communities, graduate from these programs will be able to handle:
- Engaging With Your Audience – Helping to create and foster meaningful conversations between you and your audience and building engagement growth.
- Handling Customer Questions – Knowing how to provide an answering service for incoming queries. This may mean answering the easy ones independently and finding additional information for the more complicated queries.
- Community Moderation – Not everyone who uses social media is there for fun times. Graduates learn the difference between good engagement and negative engagement, and which replies are just bots. As part of the public relations side of the course, they will learn how to handle complaints publicly so as to keep your reputation intact.
- Influencer Engagement – Help your business build meaningful connections with real influencers in your industry to build your authority and spread your message.
- Growing Your Followers – Growing an organic social media following is hard work, but graduates from a masters in communications program learn how to create meaningful content that helps your audience grow with real and relevant followers and fans.
Summing Up
Marketing is an ever-evolving industry, and more often than not you will want to work with professionals who are both experts in their field as well as highly experienced and skilled in a range of other marketing disciplines.
Taking on graduates from a masters in communications program allows you to work with some of the brightest young minds to graduate in the last decade.
Students work online and take their course online, this means they are fully immersed in the world in which they are going to be working. They use real-world examples and build a professional network of like-minded individuals, which is great for exploring new skills and good for networking when it comes to hiring other professionals.
Modern communications courses cover all kinds of social media-specific aspects form post creation to public relations. It is part creativity, part writing, and part psychology of human nature. Graduates will learn what makes an audience tick and what makes them more likely to buy products and click on links.
As well as having a broad knowledge of how marketing works, many graduates choose to specialize in specific fields. One of the most popular fields is content marketing, the art of creating great content for an audience to enjoy.
Content marketing specialists who have a masters in communications are a powerful asset to any marketing team or small business. They are switched on to current events and have a unique understanding of how to use storytelling to get the message across to the right people at the right time.
