November 29, 2013
Social media is an exciting, yet demanding arena of work to be in. I suppose that’s what makes it good fun.
The skills and capabilities required for social media excellence are sometimes chopped up and divvied out to specialists within large agencies. For others, agency and in-house folk alike, all skills are a requisite for their social media/ communications/ digital role.
I don’t think that there is necessarily a better or worse option here, but what I do believe is that regardless of your specific role, to be a truly excellent professional in social, you need to possess an understanding of the wider skill set required.
At our social speakeasy event last night, we heard from the lovely Jason Wills, Marketing Director for Thorpe Park, Merlin Entertainments. He shared with our guests his experiences of how social media has helped him to achieve his marketing objectives. A brilliant story teller, Jason got me thinking about what personal qualities and capabilities are required for social media success.
Here’s my initial list – I’d love to hear your thoughts and views:
– Guts and desire to try new things. We’ve all heard it a million times over but social media is an ever morphing and evolving beast; new platforms like Snapchat quickly spring up, and some die down just as fast. You need to have the guts to try and test new things, even if it’s to say at the end, you know what that didn’t work but it’s ok, we’ve learnt something.
– Everyday creativity. I love how social enables brands and businesses to build meaningful connections with consumers, and have 1-2-1 conversations with them. But it’s a competitive space, so to win their engagement, you need to be creative, in everything you do. Make your content sing!
– Interest in digging deep. With social media comes vast quantities and data of insight. Although it can seem overwhelming, it is imperative that you are able to harness the insight from this data in order to make changes and better your brand or business. Do not be afraid.
– A keen interest in technology. With the sonic speed growth of social, new technologies and platforms have sprung up left, right and centre. You need to be able to pick the best tools to enable you to do your job well, and you need to be able to sniff out a gimmick.
– Energy. And lots of it. Social media is non-stop and requires constant love and attention. You can’t just run your big wow creative campaign and then chill out – social media requires that you put in the time required to make it work, on an everyday basis and not just when you feel like it (to put it bluntly).
That’s my two pennies worth – I think there are many more skills and capabilities that I could list . I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Happy Friday lovely social media people! Kate