How to Become a Social Media Manager in Canada in 6 Steps

You may be wondering how to become a social media manager in Canada and develop your career. Working as a social media manager is a flexible career that cuts across different fields and industries. With a basic understanding of how to work as a social media manager, you can start building your career which will pay off in the long run.

Undoubtedly, social media, over time, has become an essential marketing area. This is mostly because it can reach customers anywhere in the world and capture their interest. Through social media as a tool, you can learn about customer behaviour, needs and pain.

Also, social media cuts across all sectors of the economy. So, working as a social media manager means working across fields. In this article, we will help you to understand the steps to becoming a social media manager in Canada, the skills of a social media manager and what a social media manager does.

Who is a social media manager?

A social media manager is typically responsible for creating content that drives engagement on an organization’s social media platforms. If you must be successful as a social media manager, you must have the ability to tell stories. Additionally, you must have a keen eye for design and analytical skills.

What are the duties of social media managers?

Social media managers work in the communications, public relations and marketing departments of an organization. They particularly monitor and filter social media presence within the organization. Similarly, they are helpful in steering marketing plans in real-time. Social managers must research trends within the industry and remain current on top news.

Consequently, to become a social media manager in Canada, you must be ready to act as an organization’s mouthpiece. That is, you have to engage with the public and promote their vision.

Aside from the above, social media managers can:

• Develop calendars: Editorial calendars help social media managers to publish their content at the right time. You must know the possible time to publish your content. Additionally, ensure to create content that would strategically target the needs of your audience. This will help in attracting the right engagement to your post.
• Monitor social media channels: Your employer is likely going to have a list of social media channels to generate traffic to their website or page. As a social media manager, you must identify the possible ways to make this happen, using the best analytical tools and social medial algorithms.
• Maintain brand guidelines: You will maintain brand guidelines across all social media handles of your employer. You will likewise communicate with the marketing and sales managers to ensure everyone is on the same page. Your major duty here is to ensure the brand’s values and goals are consistent across all channels.

What are the skills of a social media manager?

If you are interested to become a social media manager in Canada, you need to improve on the following skills:

• Writing: this is a very important skill you need as a social media manager. Excellent writing skills go beyond having grammar, punctuation and spelling skills. You must be creative and imaginative enough to elicit compelling stories inwardly. Your writing must fit into the brand’s story to enable the audience to engage accordingly.
• Editing and proofreading: This skill helps you to ensure the written work is free of any kind of error. So, after writing the content, you must go through it to correct typographical, grammatical, punctuation and other errors.
• Knowledge of social media platforms: You must have a detailed knowledge of all social media platforms. This includes understanding their strengths and weaknesses, user demographic, the best time for engagement, and other characteristics. The platforms you will most likely engage with are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and many more.
• Analytical tools: You must understand the best message that resonates with your audience and create your content accordingly. You can use such social media tools as Hootsuite, HubSpot, Sprout Social, and others.
• Timeliness: Staying on top of the news and creating trending topics will help you to gain more traffic to your posts. Ensure the conversations are on important news.

Steps to become a social media manager in Canada

Becoming a social media manager in Canada is one of the most profound decisions you can make. Here are the basic steps to enable you to build your career in this field:

1. Acquire a degree

The first step to becoming a social manager in Canada is to get a bachelor’s or master’s degree. This could be in relevant fields like marketing or communications or advertising. Although the degrees are not the major prerequisites for the job, they offer the necessary skills to succeed in the field. On the other hand, you can still have a post-secondary degree in any field and still succeed in the job. But you will undergo an internship program that requires you to work under the supervision of a professional social media manager.

2. Obtain experience

To successfully manage a social media account, you will need to have some level of work experience. In the same way, you will be able to understand how social media algorithms and platforms function and the best time to engage in activities. As time goes on, you may create a portfolio to prove your social media management skills. One of the best ways to gain experience is by offering your services to someone who owns a small business and would want it to be projected online. Moreover, you will need to develop strategies for different businesses since no two businesses are the same. This will help you to expand your horizon as well.

Also, it will be necessary to create a website to showcase your projects. With that, every potential client can see what you have been up to.

3. Build your social media followership

One of the ways to become a social media manager in Canada is to build a strong following. To build a strong following online, you will need to develop a unique strategy to attract attention to you. You can do this by sharing engaging content with your audience. and Targeting a huge number of likes and comments to increase your online visibility. Stay updated with trends and use them to create relevant content. This will show your potential client that you are equal to the task.

4. Learn ways to use social media analytics

You will need strong analytical skills if you must become a social media manager in Canada. It helps you to know whether your media campaign is performing according to expectations. This analytics help to ensure the success of the content and identify trends among consumers. For instance, you can measure the likability of a product through the comments on the post. Additionally, you will need to review page views, followership, shares, reach and comments you generate. The essence of the review is that it may become part of your weekly or monthly report on the performance of the page to your employer. Again, recording analytics shows the frequency of your content engagement. Similarly, it exposes the areas that need improvement and what you can do to rectify the issue.

5. Obtain further training

Although you may not need any further degree to become a social media manager in Canada, you will need to take some courses to improve your skills. With the training, you can educate yourself on the latest trends and update yourself on your current skills. By and large, ensure the training is strategic enough to help you develop research, analytical and communication skills. With further training, you can acquire advanced marketing techniques and more skills for your resume. Above and beyond, the training offers you the necessary experience to excel in your career as a social media manager.

Some of the advanced techniques include:

• Knowledge of hashtag marketing
• Knowledge of webcasts, Google+ Hangouts, email capture forms, etc.
• Optimizing YouTube videos with descriptions, tags, titles, and annotations, among others.
• Custom Facebook apps
• Custom Twitter and YouTube headers

6. Follow individuals and organizations you admire

If you want to become a social media manager, then, you must learn from those who are successful in the field. You may also follow those who share similar writing styles or content to enable you to learn from them. In essence, do anything you can to excel as a social media manager.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of work settings do social media managers work in?

Majorly, social media managers work online. But they must have an offline office where they can comfortably operate from. As a result, social media managers work extensively in front of a computer. They can work from home or in office environments. Sometimes, they work as teams; other times, they work alone. They can equally work full-time or part-time, depending on the nature of their job.

Do social media managers work in a particular industry?

Social media managers work in various industries. What’s more, they mainly implement social media campaigns and engage with the audience who may be current or prospective customers of the organization. Although there is no particular industry a social media manager works, they may develop a niche in a particular industry and focus their engagements there. Most industries you can find social media managers include fashion, food, travel, fitness, art and related sectors.

How can one become a successful social media manager in Canada?

To become a successful social media manager, you must enjoy working with analytics. You must also be ready to establish brand voices for your employers. What’s more, you must always take courses to develop your skills and remain current with trends.

What is the social media manager’s salary in Canada?

According to Talent.com a social media manager in Canada can make an average salary of $50,000 per year or $25.64 per hour. Besides, the entry-level position salary is around $39,000 per year and experienced workers may earn as high as $72,875 per year.

Conclusion

To become a social media manager in Canada is an interesting career that will make you smile home to the bank while ensuring you are constantly employed. What’s more, we believe that following the steps in this article will help you become a great professional.