Data from Statista shows that in 2021, nearly 4.3 billion people used social media. That number is projected to increase to almost six billion by 2027!
With easy access to so many people, it’s unsurprising why social media content is a necessary component of anyone’s digital marketing strategy. So much so that now, plenty of people work as social media strategists.
But what does it mean to be a social media strategist? Read on to learn more about this position and how a strategist can help your business with its social media marketing.
What Is a Social Media Strategist?
A social media strategist designs campaigns over various social media channels to achieve your company’s goals. Their role focuses on the “big picture.”
Simply put, a social media strategist comes up with a strategy for your social media campaigns and hands it off to a social media manager to implement it.
While a social media strategist may help manage the day-to-day activities and help drive engagement, their most important role is to build brand awareness. In addition, they focus on bridging the gap between offline and online activities.
A social media strategist will be able to handle the following:
- Plan and schedule content
- Collaborate with other team members, such as graphic designers, copywriters, and content creators, to create marketing campaigns
- Measure campaigns’ performance
- Analyze how other channels such as search engine optimization (SEO), email, and PPC complement and interact with your social media campaigns
- Monitor business mentions
- Analyze competitors’ social media campaigns
If you have a social media team, the social media strategist is the backbone of that team.
What’s the Difference Between a Social Media Strategist and Social Media Manager?
Now that we’ve answered the question, “What is a social media strategist?” you may wonder how the role is different from a social media manager. While many use the two job titles interchangeably, these creative services have some crucial distinctions.
Social media managers focus mainly on the day-to-day activities of social media. Generally speaking, a social media manager helps to implement the strategy given by the strategist by managing a team of social media specialists.
Further, social media managers are usually only thinking about executing one campaign at a time, and their focus is on the execution of the campaign.
Some of their duties include:
- Content creation (focusing on high-quality content)
- Engaging with customers on different social media accounts, such as
- TikTok
- Identifying customer trends
- Planning and implementing digital campaigns
Some social media managers will analyze engagement and web traffic metrics to help build online communities, but this is not a requirement. Strategists tend to have more skills when it comes to analyzing statistics.
Conversely, while social media strategists may also aid in daily activities related to social media, they do much more. Strategists think about the long-term goals of the company. They need to do research and create more comprehensive marketing campaigns and strategies.
However, the required skill set for both industry professionals is quite similar. They usually need the following:
- Analytical skills
- Communication skills
- Copywriting skills
- Management skills
- Multitasking skills
- Some graphic design skills
- Time-management skills
Although their roles differ, managers and strategists work together to increase your business’s online presence and help achieve its goals.
What Does a Social Media Strategist Do?
We could give you a long list of responsibilities for a social media strategist. Instead, we’ll cover what we believe to be the three most important responsibilities of any social media strategist.
Develop, Implement, & Manage Social Media Plans
A social media strategist must identify the following:
- Potential customer demographics
- Where the target audience engages on social media
- How they communicate
- What makes them tick
With this information, they can analyze social media trends and develop a social media strategy. Once fully developed, social media specialists will implement and manage it through various social media posts.
They may work with a social media manager during the implementation stage.
Define the Most Important Social Media KPIs
With the social media campaigns in place, your strategist will then track the results. Social media analytics is instrumental to the success of your campaigns and offers powerful insights. Of course, your strategist needs to be well-versed in the basic metrics, such as
- Clicks
- Comments
- Likes
- Shares
But they may also focus on even more important KPIs, like:
- Brand mentions
- Engagement
- Followers
- Impressions/views
- Leads
- Email signups
- Sales
- Website traffic
Your strategist will use these KPIs to alter the digital marketing strategy when necessary for the best results.
Build an Online Community on Social Media
Although daily engagement is essential for a social media strategist, what matters more is building a community and cultivating influence.
Your strategist will use different tools, like storytelling, humor, and polls, to create a following of responsive and loyal customers. They will also guide your business in connecting with its target audience so that the customer relationship can go beyond sales and leads.
Do You Need a Social Media Strategist?
To know if you need to hire a social media strategist, look at who is already on your team.
A strategist is an excellent idea if you need someone to help with your big picture and create an overarching social media strategy. But if you only need someone to help with content creation, posting, and engaging with customers, you may be better off with a social media manager.
Additionally, if your current social media strategy isn’t getting the ROI you expected, a strategist can help assess why. Then, they can create a plan to reach your desired targets.
If you feel completely lost when it comes to anything social media-related, then a strategist can definitely help you.
Social Media Strategist Salary: Pricing to Expect
A strategist isn’t free, so you’ll need to add their fee to your social media marketing costs. According to Indeed.com, the average salary for a full-time social media strategist is around $52,000 per year. This is if you hire someone to join your in-house team.
However, you can also employ a strategist on a project basis. The strategist can deliver a strategy that is ready to implement. Prices will vary depending on the scope of the project and your strategist’s experience.
Grow Your Business With the Right Strategy
Growing your business’s online presence through various social media platforms is necessary to build a loyal customer base and reach your goals. Bringing a social media strategist on board can expedite achieving those goals. Want to learn more about our digital marketing services at EraserFarm? Reach out, and let’s have a chat!