Social media marketing is finally being taken with the seriousness that it has always deserved, which has resulted in an interesting fragmentation of the work. Companies are starting to realize that technical efficiency in social media marketing is a completely different beast than artistic skills. Social media marketing is taken as one job right now, but we are going towards a future where there will be a social media manager, and a social media artist, both working together to run creative social media campaigns.
As the industry forks itself, you will have to decide which side you want to fall on. You should know a bit about both sides, but you will need to pick a specialty that you can master. There is another option as well; you can work in smaller firms where the work will probably be done by one person, and manage both sides of the coin. Here are the main differences between the two.
The Technical Side of Social Media Marketing
The most important thing in the world of marketing is ROI – if you do not measure the success of your marketing campaigns, then what is the point? You will never know which strategy works and which one doesn’t, and you will keep on wasting your marketing budget on campaigns that don’t increase sales. The technical side of social media marketing is all about managing the metrics.
It is about A/B testing to find out what type of posts generate the most engagement. It is about being able to decide which campaign you should pour your budget on, and what type of engagement proves to be the most successful for you. If you are the type of person that is always on top of things and loves to be detail oriented, then this is the side you should choose.
The Creative Side of Social Media Marketing
This is the part of social media marketing that is visible. You can apply any strategy you want and send your social media posts to every social media user in the world, but if the posts themselves aren’t interesting, it will be of no use. On the other hand, a really great social media post can, by itself, result in advertising that would have cost you millions of dollars otherwise. If you are the type of person who loves coming up with ideas, and (more importantly) want other people to think these ideas are great too, then this is the part you need to focus on.
Even if you choose to be in the creative side of the business, you will need to know your technical fundamentals if you want to succeed. The same is true for the other side as well; if you choose to be on the technical side of things, you will need to know about the creative side as well. We wouldn’t be surprised if social media marketing gets so huge that companies create a department for social media even if they already have a marketing department.
