Is a Social Media Marketing Career Right for You?

If you’re considering a career in social media marketing, now is the perfect time to leap into this hot and ever-growing field.

According to Hootsuite’s Digital 2021 report, more than 4.48 billion people use these platforms daily, making a career in social media marketing a smart choice. Those in the field leverage social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok to connect with a target audience to help drive website traffic, build a widely-known brand, and gain revenue.

Social media marketers create strategies to generate more engagement, land more followers, and ultimately create more financial gain. With the internet and online commerce continuing to grow at an astounding rate, social media marketing is critical for global visibility and is a powerful way to quickly reach a large number of people.

Personality Traits and Skills

Do you think you have what it takes to build a career in social media marketing? One major plus of the career path is it doesn’t take an advanced degree to get there—anyone with a computer and a dream can build a career in the industry. Along with drive, there are some soft skills that many successful social media marketing professionals have in common.

Communication

Engaging communication is the heart of social media marketing. As a social media marketer, a large part of your day will be communicating and connecting with all kinds of people from your boss to colleagues to clients, customers, and followers. You may be communicating in person, via email, text, DMs, chats, even audio or video, in both your voice as well as the voice of a company, product, or brand. You’ll likely use words, but you may also use audio files, GIFs, videos, and even emojis to get your message across. Having strong communication skills and being comfortable communicating with others is a key element of social media marketing.

Organization

Another soft skill that can take aspiring social media marketers far is organization. Working in real-time means being able to perform multiple tasks at once and having several balls in the air. Being organized is part of any job in social media marketing. Keeping up with all that’s going on in the field is a tall order, but staying on the pulse of the fast-moving industry and being able to switch directions when necessary comes hand-in-hand with the career.

Flexibility

Social media marketers’ jobs will be different every day. Being flexible and ready to adapt as quickly as the internet—which we all know moves incredibly fast—is part of any social media marketing gig. Those who can pivot quickly will stay on top of their job best.

Since social media marketers are working across a variety of different channels, part of their jobs involves regularly switching up tasks and focus. Being able to respond to current trends, change strategy without hesitation, and think on your feet bring advantages in the social media marketing world.

Writing

While communication may be the most important trait for a social media marketer, having strong writing skills is critical as well. Communication isn’t always verbal, and being able to choose the right words for anything from an advertisement to an Instagram caption to a tweet to an email to stakeholders to writing a guest blog post for a client is paramount. Good copy equals clicks. And clicks equals the potential for more business. So strong writing skills ultimately lead to more business and financial gain. Crafting the best words and tone across platforms is no easy feat, but it will take any aspiring social media marketer far in the industry.

Creativity

Creativity is what drives social media. With the constant demand for new and interesting content, being creative is a large part of social media marketing success. Bringing something fresh to the table is always welcome. Whether it’s a pitch to a client, company brainstorming, or even figuring out what to do for your personal strategy as an entrepreneur, creativity is what keeps ideas flowing and the industry moving.

Data Analysis

While it’s more a learned skill than a soft skill, successful social media marketers use data analytics to enhance their strategy. Analytics gleaned from social listening, search tools, demographic data, visualizations, behavior analysis, and segmentation can all help social media marketers connect with a target audience, create content, and ultimately drive engagement and sales. And the good news is, if data analysis isn’t in your wheelhouse, you can look into a data analytics class to boost your skills and employability.

Social Media Marketing Careers

As more companies’ dollars continue to funnel toward this burgeoning industry, professionals with backgrounds in social media marketing are in rising demand. Social media marketing skills can lead to jobs in digital marketing, content strategy, data analytics, social media management, and consulting. Additionally, social media marketing can work to your benefit as an entrepreneur or small business owner. Despite having plenty of digital tools available, social media marketing still requires a human touch. Superior social media marketers find the sweet spot between personal and digital.

According to Glassdoor, social media marketing professionals can earn a yearly salary between about $42,00 and $140,000. This is quite a wide range of salaries and can also vary depending on position, location, company size, skill set, and experience. Social media marketers have many different roles that will change by the day (part of the fast-moving nature of the industry!) but generally, social media marketers will spend their days researching and working to connect with a target audience. They create targeted content and promote a company’s products and/or services across various social media platforms. Social media marketers work to make sure that their company’s products, services, and social media presence align with their core values and consistently bring in a pipeline of customers, clients, and followers.

If you have more experience you can snag a job as a Social Media Marketing Manager—the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that individuals in management roles earned an average of more than $141,000 in 2021. Those who continue on the path and end up in the highest-paid ten percent can bring home over $200,000 annually.

Another field that draws on those with social media marketing experience is digital strategy. Digital Strategists use social media, SEO, and digital marketing to work on projects like websites. They look for opportunities for growth and help clients create content and plan for new website releases. On average in the United States, Digital Strategists can expect to make around $61,000 a year, with numbers ranging higher or lower depending on location.

Content marketing also intersects with social media marketing. Any company, business, or brand with an online presence can use content marketing to enhance its virtual reach. According to Indeed, Content Marketers in the U.S. earn an average yearly salary of around $60K—though again, that number may change depending on location.

No matter where you’re located, if you’re interested in a career in the industry, it’s a good idea to add social media marketing expertise to your toolbox.

Learn Social Media Marketing

Those ready to learn skills and concepts to help launch a career in the field can check out Noble Desktop’s 30-hour Social Media Marketing Certificate. The curriculum gives participants a comprehensive overview of the industry. Hands-on training over five distinct units allows students to master various elements of social media marketing. Certificate program participants will learn how to determine the right social media platform for their goals, develop a successful social media strategy, and create content that increases engagement and drives sales. Expert instructors teach participants how to gain a following and underscore the importance of market positioning and using social media analytics to improve results. Noble even offers students a chance to retake the class for free within a year to drill down on challenging concepts or refresh their skills.

If you want to take a shorter course or focus on a specific platform, look into Noble’s wide variety of social media marketing classes. Individuals can attend in-person classes at Noble Desktop’s New York City location or attend live online social media marketing courses from anywhere in the world.

Noble’s Facebook Marketing class provides an in-depth look at creating targeted ads, leveraging Facebook groups, and creating business pages within the platform. The Instagram Marketing class helps students learn about advertising on Instagram as well as how to build a following by creating resonant content. The course delves into the Instagram algorithm and how to use it to develop content and posting strategies as well as increase engagement. The course’s expert instructors go over best practices and tools like Instagram Stories, marketing, and advertising.

With Noble’s LinkedIn Marketing class, you’ll learn how to craft a marketing strategy for LinkedIn, create dynamic content, and advertise on the platform. The course also covers prospecting with LinkedIn search as well as how to use LinkedIn analytics to your advantage. Finally, Social Media Video Marketing: TikTok & YouTube teaches how to use the platforms for video-based campaigns and techniques for creating content. Students will also learn how to monitor video trends, and identify and engage their target audience.

You can also find local and/or social media marketing courses, bootcamps, and certificate programs in your area using Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me tool.

>Other social media marketing resources offered by Noble Desktop include its blog which has detailed articles about various social media marketing topics, and the Intro to Social Media Marketing seminar on YouTube, which gives in-depth descriptions about various social media platforms and strategies.