Do you dream of becoming a social media manager? Read our list of 9 essential skills you need to make that dream a reality.
If you’re wondering how to become a social media manager, this article will walk you through the key skills you’ll need to perform well. Whether you’re interested in freelancing, joining an agency, or working in-house, having a broad skill set is essential to succeed.
Here are the 9 most important skills every aspiring social media manager should have.
1. Audience Research
The first area you need to master as a social media manager is research. This means digging into audience data to get a clear view of who they are, what they care about, and where their challenges lie. From there, knowing how to break down your audience into segments lets you create content that hits closer to home for each group.
Good audience research is more than data—it’s insight. It’s the foundation that informs everything from what content to create to how you engage and even where to invest your ad dollars.
Mastering this skill lets you build a strategy that’s laser-focused on what actually matters to your followers. Plus, audience insights feed directly into other skills you need as a social media manager, like trendspotting, community-building, and creating scroll-stopping content.
2. Content Creation & Curation Expertise
In addition to understanding the audience end, you need to know how to create and curate the actual content for social media channels.
This means learning to create posts that genuinely feel like they’re from the brand, capturing the tone and style that match its character. So, if you’re managing social media for a relaxed, neighborhood coffee shop, the posts should feel friendly and welcoming—just like the shop does.
Next, you’ll need to develop your eye for curation. Curation isn’t about reposting just anything; it’s choosing content that your audience will genuinely find helpful or interesting. Maybe you’ll share a popular post from a few months back but with an updated twist, or you’ll tap into trending topics that fit with the brand’s style.
Together, content creation and curation skills will help you build a cohesive and engaging social media presence. You’ll learn how to connect with an audience, build trust, and keep followers coming back for more.
3. Proficiency with Social Media Management Tools
A big part of being a successful social media manager is also knowing how to work with social media management tools. These tools are essential for planning, creating, and scheduling content, but they also help you manage approval workflows, collaborate with clients, and keep everything organized.
Tools like Gain offer free trials, making it easy to explore their features and see if they fit your workflow. As you become more familiar with them, you’ll notice that these tools can improve your skills in design, content curation, and even data analytics, helping you create better, more engaging posts.
What’s exciting about these tools is that they’re evolving fast. With AI-powered features being added to many platforms, you can now use insights to predict trends, optimize content timing, or even generate content ideas. Keeping up with these developments can give you a competitive edge and make your work more impactful.
4. Data Analysis & Reporting Skills
To become a great social media manager, you’ll also need strong data analysis skills to understand raw data and turn it into useful insights that shape your strategy. Knowing what’s performing well, what’s driving engagement, and what isn’t allows you to invest time and resources in the right places.
Equally important is the ability to interpret and report these insights in a way that’s clear and easy for others to understand. Whether you’re working with clients or reporting to your manager, effective reporting lets them see the impact of your work and the strategy behind your decisions.
5. Community Building
The art of community building is about creating a space where followers feel seen, valued, and engaged. It’s a core skill for any social media manager aiming to cultivate customer loyalty.
According to the Digital Marketing Institute, only about 20% of your social media output should focus on direct brand promotion. The other 80%? It should be all about sparking conversations, sharing stories, and creating moments that bring your community together.
As a social media manager, you’ll often find yourself handling elements of community management. This means directly engaging with followers, responding to comments and messages, and building an inclusive atmosphere that encourages interaction. Be ready to do all of these things, and get better at them fast!
6. Adaptability & Trendspotting Talent
Social media trends change in the blink of an eye, and a great social media manager is always on top of them. Whether it’s a new meme format, trending audio, or platform update, being adaptable keeps your brand relevant and fresh.
Adaptability also means knowing when a trend isn’t right for your audience. Jumping on every trend can dilute your brand message, so it’s crucial to understand when to join in and when to let one pass.
Spotting trends early and adapting quickly is what separates reactive managers from proactive strategists.
7. Basic Design Skills
In an ideal world, this would be left up to a graphic designer, but a social media manager wears many hats. You don’t need to be an expert in all things Adobe, but it doesn’t hurt if you know how to put something together when the occasion calls for it.
You should be able to create static social media posts for platforms like Instagram, write an engaging post on X, and create some eye-catching video content for TikTok. Like we said, you don’t have to be an absolute expert but some basic skills can go a long way!
8. Team Management
When working on larger projects, you may have a team to manage. Soft skills are just as important as hard skills so make time to develop them.
Here are the core team management skills:
- Effective communication – Clear, honest, and open.
- Emotional intelligence – Understand your team’s vibes and what motivates them.
- Organization – Keep everyone (and everything) on track.
- Problem-solving – Find solutions, not excuses.
- Decisiveness – Lead with clarity.
To develop these skills you should examine your existing strengths and weaknesses to identify areas of improvement. This will help you set goals for yourself.
One way to grow your managerial skills is to invite feedback from your team and practice taking and implementing suggestions. This will help develop best practices and increase your team’s confidence. Everyone wants to feel listened to.
If you still feel you need to ameliorate these skills you can look into professional development courses. Many can be taken online.
9. Budgeting
Finally, you need to know how to work with budgets of all sizes. Whether you’re allocating funds for ads, influencers, or new tools, smart budgeting maximizes the impact of every dollar spent.
Budgeting skills help you make strategic choices about where to invest. Are Facebook ads yielding a good return? Is it worth hiring an influencer for a product launch? Knowing how to analyze ROI and allocate resources wisely keeps your social media efforts cost-effective.
With strong budgeting skills, you can ensure that your strategy is financially sustainable and scalable.
FAQs About Becoming a Social Media Manager
According to research, the average base salary for a social media manager approx. $60,000 as of October 2024.
A social media manager focuses on creating, scheduling, and analyzing content to boost brand awareness and engagement across platforms. In contrast, a community manager builds relationships directly with the audience, fostering conversation and handling questions. Simply put, social media managers drive content, while community managers nurture and connect with the community around it.
The Bottom Line
When exploring how to become a social media manager, there’s a lot to consider. You need to understand tech, people, money, and artistry but we think if you can acquire these 9 skills, you’ll be well on your way.
Our tool, Gain, can help you optimize your content approval workflows and client collaboration. You’ll never have to chase clients in email threads again. What’s more, you can create, publish, and post content directly from the app and manage assets in dedicated client areas.
Sign up free today to learn how we can help you become a great social media manager.
