Social Media Consultant Job Description
Table of Contents
A Social Media Consultant helps organizations optimize their social media presence.
As a strategist, a social media expert, and an accomplished content writer, a Social Media Consultant provides an end-to-end service to help organizations boost brand awareness and improve sales.
Most Social Media Consultants work in an agency or as freelancers, and the role can provide a path to more general marketing or brand consultancy positions.
What Does a Social Media Consultant Typically Do?
A Social Media Consultant strategizes social media campaigns, creates content, and manages the social media presence for organizations.
The role’s responsibilities include:
- Understanding the social media environment
- Liaising with the client organization to develop a social media strategy
- Developing implementation plans based on agreed strategies
- Creating content for various social media platforms
- Posting content and monitoring success
- Calculating return on investment (ROI) for campaigns
- Reporting to the client organization
- Selling and marketing
Understanding the Social Media Environment
The social media environment is constantly evolving, and many organizations cannot devote the time necessary to understand and exploit it fully.
A Social Media Consultant follows all the latest developments across all platforms and understands how to utilize each one to an organization’s advantage.
In addition to understanding each platform’s strengths and weaknesses, a Social Media Consultant follows trending content, hashtags, and influencers and knows what will have the strongest impact on a social media campaign.
Liaising With the Client Organization To Develop Social Media Strategy
The client organization develops clear and measurable targets, and a Social Media Consultant offers concrete advice on how best to achieve them.
The targets may involve client reach, awareness metrics, or lead generation, and could be achieved using a variety of tactics. A Social Media Consultant helps the organization decide on the strategy that will deliver the best value for money, generating the best results for the lowest cost.
Developing Implementation Plans Based on Agreed Strategies
Having helped the client organization decide on a strategy, a Social Media Consultant develops an implementation plan to achieve the organization’s targets.
The plan will provide answers to the following questions:
- Which platforms will be used and how each will be exploited
- How many posts will be created
- How content will vary across different platforms
- How engagement will be encouraged and measured
Depending on the size and marketing capability of the client organization, the content may be either provided or left to a Social Media Consultant to develop. In either case, the plan includes the tailoring of content for each platform.
Creating Content for Various Social Media Platforms
The client organization and a Social Media Consultant collaborate to develop general content concepts, which are then fleshed out and tailored to each platform.
The content is arranged in order of publication, and the format is fine-tuned for each platform to ensure the best possible reach and engagement.
A Social Media Consultant creates content where required and ensures it is aligned to the client organization’s corporate identity (CI) and marketing guidelines. The content is then presented to the client organization for sign-off, following which it can be scheduled for publication.
Posting Content and Monitoring Success
The agreed content is uploaded and scheduled on the agreed platforms, and a Social Media Consultant verifies that each post is successfully published.
Following publication, a Social Media Consultant monitors views, clicks, comments, and mentions to determine the success of each post. As a campaign progresses, the various posts’ success can be trended and compared.
This allows a Social Media Consultant to determine whether the content is reaching its target audience or whether any changes should be made to subsequent posts.
Calculating ROI for Campaigns
ROI can be calculated either as a direct correlation to incremental revenue generated by a campaign—in the case of a sales promotion, for example—or as a comparative cost compared with the cost of reaching the same number of people by other advertising methods.
In either case, a Social Media Consultant calculates the ROI to demonstrate the success of the strategy, the content, and the platform choice throughout the campaign.
Reporting to the Client Organization
The client organization wants to understand how well its media spend has performed, so a Social Media Consultant provides regular reports during and after a campaign to highlight success, identify opportunities, and suggest corrective action.
The reports should be clear, factual, and supported by raw data. The client organization measures the success of Social Media Consultants not just on their ability to create successful campaigns but also on their willingness to act on data and learn from mistakes.
Selling and Marketing
Most Social Media Consultants work with agencies or as freelancers and must devote adequate time to generating leads, getting new clients, and closing new business deals.
A full pipeline of hot, warm, and cold prospects ensures future business security for a Social Media Consultant.
This task requires careful time management, full commitment to the sales process, and all-around maintenance of an up-to-date portfolio of successful work to guarantee ongoing sales.
Social Media Consultant Salary
A Social Media Consultant’s salary ranges from $63,000 to $76,000 a year in the U.S. The median is $69,556.
What Is the Social Media Consultant Pay Difference by Location?
Location affects a Social Media Consultant’s earnings as follows:
| City | Average Salary |
| San Francisco, CA | $86,945 |
| Milwaukee, WI | $68,839 |
| New York, NY | $83,676 |
| Washington, D.C. | $77,430 |
| Denver, CO | $70,342 |
| Boston, MA | $78,369 |
| Seattle, WA | $76,053 |
| Austin, TX | $68,409 |
What Is the Social Media Consultant Pay Difference by Experience Level?
A Social Media Consultant’s experience has the following effect on earnings:
| Experience Level | Average Salary |
| < 1 year | $69,049 |
| 1–4 years | $70,746 |
| 5–9 years | $71,043 |
| 10–19 years | $71,737 |
| 20+ years | $71,737 |
Social Media Consultant Job Description Template
[Company] is looking to expand its client base and requires the services of an experienced and successful Social Media Consultant to achieve this.
If you have a proven track record of taking brands and organizations to the next level through social media marketing, we want to hear from you.
Social Media Consultant Job Responsibilities
Your responsibilities as a Social Media Consultant will include:
- Advising on social media trends
- Developing social media strategies with our marketing team
- Creating effective and exciting content
- Monitoring success and creating regular reports
- Generating long-term directions for our social media presence
Required Skill Set
We are looking for the following qualifications, skills, and behaviors:
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or similar
- Proven track record of successful social media work
- Thorough understanding of all social media platforms
- Excellent content creation skills
- Deep knowledge of social media analytics
- Strong project management knowledge and skills
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