How to become a social media marketer

One of the most common reasons that someone would want to learn how to utilize social media platforms for advertising purposes is, unsurprisingly, to find work in the field of social media marketing. This is a booming industry that offers professionals a lot of different opportunities to find success in advertising for clients or for their own products. If you are interested in becoming a professional in the field of social media marketing, there are a few things you’ll need to consider. This article aims to provide aspiring social media marketers with an understanding of how the field works and how they can go about preparing for a lucrative professional career.

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Practical steps to break into social media marketing

Social media marketing is a field where aspiring professionals can land an entry-level role without having to commit to a four-year degree. Instead, pursuing a social media marketing certificate, teaches students skills that are needed to land a new career in just a fraction of the time. In addition to traditional training, there are also some steps you can take to support your learning journey and help you stand out from the crowd.

• Build a portfolio to showcase your best work and highlight your skills working with different platforms
• Start your own blog, whether written content on LinkedIn or video content on TikTok, to develop your voice as a marketer
• Track your own metrics as practice to understand trends and how content performs on different social media platforms
• Take advantage of free resources on YouTube or LinkedIn Learning in addition to your training to supplement learning

What skills will I need to find a job in social media marketing?

Obviously, the most straightforward skill you’ll need to become a social media marketer is an understanding of social media platforms and how they can be used as tools for marketing projects. This means understanding how different social media platforms operate, how their user bases engage with the content they are consuming, and what tools each platform offers to assist marketers in building an identity on that platform. For example, Facebook and Instagram have very different user bases and very different approaches to creating and consuming user content, so a professional marketer will need to understand that what works on Facebook may not work on Instagram, and the opposite is also true. 

This extends to understanding what platforms are best suited for achieving the goals that you have set for your marketing campaigns. For instance, if you are looking to build organic interaction and engagement with your content, it is likely that a platform like Instagram or Facebook will be more valuable than one like X (formerly Twitter) or LinkedIn. By contrast, if you are looking to construct a cohesive brand identity, the short-form content of X might be where you want to start working before branching out into other platforms. In essence, the important thing to consider is that every social media platform that has succeeded appeals to different desires and user expectations, so the user base is going to interact with your content in different ways.

You’ll also want to learn the essential aspects of digital marketing to complement your social media specialization (assuming you want to be a specialist). Learning the finer points of online marketing tools like Google Ads and more general strategies like brand management and email marketing will go a long way toward demonstrating that you have multifaceted skills and are well-equipped for complex marketing roles that extend beyond social media. You’ll also want to understand the foundations of data analytics since you want to be able to determine, through quantitative and qualitative methods, whether or not your campaigns are actually achieving their goals. This training will help ensure that you are making informed decisions as you craft an online marketing campaign.

The aim of learning social media marketing skills is to qualify for a high-paying job in the field. Learning how to work as a social media manager is actually a gateway to a high-paying, in-demand career. For example, an advertising and promotions manager can expect an annual salary of nearly $127,000 annually. This will vary from city to city and position to position, but it indicates that there are excellent salaries available for professionals in the field of digital marketing.

Where to learn social media marketing skills

Learning how to market on social media can be challenging, particularly if you aren’t familiar with the platforms and their general user bases. While you can trial and error your way around the websites and manage to learn some basics from self-guided classes or on-demand programs, you are very likely to want dedicated training to help you master the various platforms you’ll be using. On the flip side, while you can enroll in a college-level marketing, business, or advertising course, it is unlikely that these will focus on social media marketing at the general level that you’ll need in order to become a specialist, at least not without years of study.

One good alternative is to enroll in a digital marketing or social media marketing professional training program offered through a service like Noble Desktop or General Assembly. These training providers offer live online and in-person professional development courses aimed at helping students prepare for jobs in a wide variety of different technical fields, including social media marketing. They are going to be less expensive and time-consuming than a college degree program (often cheaper and shorter than a single semester of college) while still providing students with high-quality training that they can take with them immediately onto the job market once the course is complete. These training centers also tend to provide students with career-focused support services, including one-on-one career mentoring sessions, job placement support, and networking opportunities through alumni meetings and posting platforms. All of this works to ensure that these courses provide students with the training they need to find a job as soon as they are done.