Thorough knowledge about something does not make you an expert; the ability to share it with the world does.
A social media marketing expert lives and breathes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Snapchat marketing. Social media today is a broad concept, and Social Media Marketing (SMM) is at its peak.
Social Media Marketing experts will have to know the nooks and corners of not one, not two, but all the social media platforms. They should be able to leverage all the tools that these social media platforms have to offer.
Thorough passion, along with the fearlessness to try out new strategies, is one of their key traits. It takes perseverance to make it as an expert in the field.
Let’s not forget the role that the audience plays in the skyrocketing of social media marketing.
SMM experts will have to be an audience analyst as well. They should be able to understand audience behavior backward and forward.
To become a social media marketing expert, you have to be a social media marketer first.
As the saying goes, ‘A great reader is a good writer,’ social media marketing experts are usually avid practitioners. They not only hold expertise in the field but also have the willingness to impart their tools, techniques, and analytics to the other social media marketing practitioners.
Who is a Social Media Marketer?
- They perform social media marketing for businesses to elevate their online presence.
- They use a combination of techniques to strategize what platform could suit the business’ goals best.
- They have a natural sense of understanding of audiences’ behavior.
- They study the competition and their social media marketing strategies.
- They create content strategies (engagement, conversion) that can market a business most engagingly.
- They create content calendars and campaign calendars to fall entirely in sync with the brand’s goals.
- They stick to timelines and produce the desired metrics.
- They study the results produced and the success areas.
- Most of all, they are on point with the current trends and practices.
Do you wanna become an SMM expert? Start now with these simple tactics listed below.
Tactics to Become a Social Media Marketing Expert
Let’s divide the route to becoming a social media expert into three stages.
- Stage I- Welcome to the world of social media
- Stage II- Find, You
- Stage III- Ride to Victory! You are an expert now
Stage I – Welcome to the World of Social Media
Take up an online/offline course
Some social media platforms or the other is releasing new updates. They are growing at a pace like never before. So, you can learn so much by yourself.
The super-speed in the development of SMM has led to an increase in the number of excellent courses.
Especially if you are in the cities, you can take up a classroom course that offers real-time experience with live projects. If it’s not possible to take a classroom course, then enroll in an excellent online course.
You should be able to get to work by the end of the course.
Gain experience
Much effort goes into learning the subject in deep. The prudent way to go about it would be to start working on real-time projects. You can either take up small freelance projects or work with a brand or an SMM agency.
Either way, you should be working towards real-time, measurable results.
Be it building brand awareness, pulling off ROI, or coming up with new solutions, you should be able to do them all. So, grab the opportunity to learn new techniques and tools from other marketers.
Unless you help a brand reach its goals via SMM, you won’t be able to learn everything.
Get in touch with an expert
Have a mentor or a person to look up to would be of great help. Digital gurus are in plenty today, mainly for SMM. To impart their knowledge, they would share plenty of insights on different platforms.
Subscribe to blogs written by them or follow their YouTube video channel. If you can, get in touch with any of them via live chat or email conversations, you could clarify doubts, learn tricks, etc.
Start reading- a lot
There are many blogs on the new and innovative techniques that businesses use today on social media. You wouldn’t know where to sell what if you don’t know the half of it.
Reading related blogs is the best way to learn. Subscribe to blogs that you find useful; that way, you would be able to get immediate updates. Some valuable blogs would be Social media examiner, Hubspot, TechCrunch, inc.com, and social media today.
Several books provide the right guidance. Also, follow successful campaigns and do your case studies. This way, you would be able to learn what works and what doesn’t.
Stage II – Find, You
Think differently
Now that you are a practicing social media marketer, how do you stand out from the crowd? Social media gives room for a lot of creativity. Use your imagination to create campaigns that are fresh and goal-focused.
Campaigns that can get you award and recognition in the industry are highly encouraged.
Viral content is one of the highly appreciated techniques on social media. So, create viral content. Don’t be a trend-follower but be a trend-setter.
A niche within a niche
Find the element that can make you an expert. Simple, if lead generation is your strength, then do all that you can to do it ten steps higher than the rest of them.
Hone your skills in a single niche or a domain that can set you apart. But don’t forget that social media is a whole entity. You should have a thorough knowledge of all of them.
What I’m saying is that uniqueness makes an expert.
Preach what you’ve been practicing
As I mentioned in the beginning, an expert never hesitates to teach. Start a blog that can talk about your work and what you have learned from it.
Use the platform like Instagram too directly take to the audience about different approaches to SMM. Answer questions about various forums such as Quora and Yahoo, which is a great way to widen your perspective.
Attend meetings and conventions
Keep yourself in the loop; if there’s any meetup or a marketing convention, then you should be there. The point is, you would become a known person and a part of the social media marketer circle.
Take part in events that are conducted by platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. Talk about your event happenings to your social media audience and open up conversations.
Stage III – Ride to Victory! You are an Expert After This
Build your body of work
The thing that is going to speak for you is your work. Be sure to keep track of all your tasks from the beginning. The more diverse your job is, the more it says about you as an expert.
Your work should have proved that you are a reliable Social media marketer. Also, building good relationships with clients would be an additional plus.
Update yourself constantly
Knowledge has no saturation point. In the case of social media, it is the age of chatbots and AR. No one knows what is in store next. You can only predict the future up to an extent. So, it’s better to go with the flow and keep updating.
Small Case Study of a Social Media Marketing Expert- Jamie Turner
Jamie Turner is the brains behind 60secondmarketer.com. He has helped several businesses reach their goals— thanks to his out-of-the-box thinking. Companies such as At &t, CocaCola, Holiday Inn, CNN, Cartoon Network, etc. have benefitted from his work.
As an expert in the field, he has written a few books and given valuable lectures all over the world.
- A strong teaching career.
- VLogging, blogging.
- Consistent work.
- A brand.
- Active participation with his audience.
5 Bonus Tips that Can Land You the ‘Expert’ Title
- Don’t just promote yourself as an SMM marketer; do the work to become one.
- Set up accounts on all major social media platforms. Be an audience before a marketer.
- The faster you could grab the interest of an audience, the higher your expertise in SMM marketing.
- Do not practice unethical SMM practices. Trust, once lost, can never be regained.
- Most importantly, never stop learning.
This is a guest post by Sorav Jain. He is the founder and CEO of echoVME. Follow him on Twitter for digital marketing related tweets. If you would like to write a guest post for Daglega, please contact us.
Hi Sorav,
There’s no better way to become an expert in what you do that to work hard at it. It is true that learning from those who have been there before you will help you cut the learning curve, but if you do not put in the effort, what you’ve learned will be waste. So you need to be consistent by continually working at it.
Hi Moss,
Thank you very much for stopping by. I hope Sorav will respond soon.
Yes, I believe that we have to work and apply the knowledge we’ve gained by working with the experts and studying their work. And, if anybody wants to become an expert on any subject, they must apply some creativity, try new things that nobody tried before.
Leave A Comment
Yes, Moss. You are right! A key to becoming an expert is to keep oneself updated. Thank you so much for your time. I hope you found this article informative!
Thinking differently is a key step Sorav. This distances you from the herd and makes you more appealing on social media sites. Fab post buddy.
Ryan
Hi Ryan. Thanks for your comments. You got the crux of it right. It’s all about spreading your creative wings wide.
Hi Sorav, You are right about trying new things and always analyzing and reading. I can’t believe I’ve been at this almost 10 years and it is changing almost hourly today. It can be daunting to stay up with the latest on each of the social networks. I try to stay up on 3-4 of them daily.
I find it funny that some are not even on Twitter or barely use social media but yet they provide services to others. There is no better way to test than with your own account :)
Thanks and have a great day Sorav.
Hi Lisa, rightly said! I agree that the best way to stay up to date and hone your digital marketing skills is to actively participate and try things for oneself. There is no substitute for hands-on experience.
Hi Sorav,
Very good blog post. Many online business owners spend a lot of time on creating great websites and solely depend on SEO as a traffic source however they forget to diversify their traffic sources. Master Social media marketing is the key to diversify their traffic source.
Social media provides business the best way to interact with their customers. Mastering social media is the key to running a successful online business. In this blog post, you listed exactly how one can master social media marketing. which will be useful to both newbie business owners and also seasoned business owners. Thanks for sharing this insightful blog post.