The roles of Social Media Manager and Director of Social Media (or similar titles) are very new. Even as recent as a year ago you would have been hard pressed to find any organization with a manager or director of Social Media. Some companies had people doing some of the things that social media managers are doing now. Many organizations delegated the functions to an outside Ad or PR agency. Some other organizations delegated some of the activities (or all) that social media managers should do to someone in their IT department or a Webmaster. Recalling Dr. Ian Fenwick's remarks at Canada-e-Connect 2009, having an IT professional doing digital (or social media) marketing is insane! Even today, I come across job postings looking for Social Media expertise that are more focused on technical aspects, like programming or CMS expertise, instead of communications and marketing backgrounds.
Canada is just beginning to catch up to other parts of the world (mostly the US and the UK to be more precise) when it comes to creating specific roles for digital and social media marketing practitioners (one job posting that I thought was funny was one in which the organization was looking for someone with about 8 years experience in Social Media - laughable, right? there was NO social media to speak of 8 years ago when Google was barely 3 years old!).
So what do the responsibilities of a Manager of Social Media would look like on paper?
Strategy - work closely with the appropriate colleagues to devise and implement the organization's social media strategy
Content (is still king) - create and agglomerate content from colleagues or outside sources, get approval for posts if needed) and publish content across social media platforms (make the content travel). Maintain the organization's social media presence up to date.
Engagement - harness the power of super fans of the brand, product, destination, by designing ways to reward these consumers for their contributions
Training - train and educate colleagues in the organization on the relevant aspects of social media depending on the organization's objectives
Research - stay informed on latest developments and trends in social media and communicate these to colleagues in the organization - monitor competitors' digital presence.
Measurement - use relevant metrics to measure effectiveness and prepare reports
Analysis - make recommendations on marketing initiatives based on sound analysis
Jaime
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