Role Hackers: The Role of a Social Media and Content Manager

The dreaded question we hear so often – “so… what do you ACTUALLY do?”. It’s difficult to define because what we do varies from day to day. In essence, we bring advertising campaigns to life on social media. But there’s a lot more to it. 

So, what does a social & content team do? 

Being part of the Social & Content team, at least at TBWA\Dublin, affords me with unique opportunities to work at almost every stage of the creative process. We do includes building social media strategies, coming up with creative concepts, producing content, working with influencers, analysing campaign data, managing social media communities and proactively seeking ways in which our clients can react to what’s happening in the world around them.    

Okay, but what skills do I need? 

The director of social & content at TBWA\Dublin, Andrew Murray, would say we are a Jack of all trades and a master of some – and contrary to popular belief, that’s not a bad thing. We are wearers of many hats, and knowing when to wear which hat is an important skill to have. Let me illustrate some examples for you…

Scenario One: The Strategy Hat

Strategic thinking is an integral part of the role. Sure, we could churn out plenty of amazing, creative content and hope that it lands in front of the right people – but the social media space is totally littered with ads. So, we need to make sure that the right type of content is hitting the right type of people. 

We might start with identifying the type of customer we’re trying to reach but we need to delve deeper into, not only WHAT they want to see from a brand on social, but WHY, WHERE and HOW they want to consume this content. That means we need to identify the social media channels they’re most active on, the content formats they’re most likely to respond to, the messaging that will resonate with them most and the type of content they’re likely to interact with. 

What I’m saying is, social & content management needs to be insight-led and data-driven in order to be successful. We need to understand how people are behaving on social and tap into that in order to reach them effectively.

Scenario Two: The Creative Cap 

Do you have any idea how many ads you’ve seen today? It has been suggested that the average person encounters approximately 6,000 ads per day, and considering how much time we all spend on social media, a whole chunk of that 6k can be attributed to social ads. 

Now, imagine that your job is to create social media ads. It might seem like a fairly daunting task to some, but who doesn’t love a good challenge?

A major part of the role involves thinking about creative ways to break through the noise on social media and produce creative, innovative content that will make a person stop scrolling and pay attention. That means we need to find ways of disrupting the status quo and break with convention. We need to find ways of eliciting some sort of response from the audience; perhaps it’s content that makes them laugh, or content that makes them smile, or content that makes them think. Whatever the goal may be, we are constantly working on creative ideas that will enable our clients to stand out from the crowd and simultaneously add value to people’s lives.  

Scenario Three: The Analytical Bonnet

Data and analytics aren’t the sexiest words in the English dictionary, but analysing campaign results and identifying what led to a campaign’s success can offer interesting insights and important learnings. By analysing the data, we may find that one content format, creative asset or copy line performed better than others. So, we can take those learnings and apply them to future campaigns – ensuring that our budget is well-spent while also increasing the likelihood of success.

But campaign analysis should not be carried out as a post-campaign-only activity. Reviewing metrics while the campaign is still live is, in my opinion, the key to an effective campaign. You might find, for example, that one of your ads is costing more than you expected, or that you’re not reaching a large portion of your audience for whatever reason. Identifying when/why these things are happening and making optimisations to change that can totally transform the results of a campaign.

That makes sense, but where does social & content manager sit within a creative agency 

One of my favourite aspects of working within a Creative Agency is getting to work alongside lots of other teams; whether that’s working with Account Management to deliver client asks, working with the Strategy team to plan a campaign, working with the Creative team to come up with ideas and concepts, or working with the Production team to create content. 

What is the best part of being a social and content manager?

There are plenty of things I love about my role, but there’s nothing quite like seeing a campaign come to life on social and seeing positive reactions flood through. There’s a quote I read once that said something along the lines of “social media is less about technology and more about relationship building” and for me, that’s what social media does. It offers us/our clients an opportunity to connect with consumers on a deeper (and in some cases, a more effective) lThevel than any other form of media.