Content management has emerged as a key requirement on Social Media. It involves two skills: creation of content and management of content; and you can succeed as a content manager only if you master both the skills.
Please remember that Social Media is a thankless master. You have to work extra hard if you want to succeed as a content manager on social media. You have to learn, and learn quickly, the fickleness of the media. The community that you address on social media is very nebulous. It is like a floating cloud that changes shape with every fleeting moment.
You need the following skills if you want to succeed as a content manager:
1. Identification of the community
The Internet has always worked on the principle of community. The social media is even more community driven. If you are creating content for techies, then you must know where the techies hang out. You must identify every techie page on Facebook or techie group on Twitter; browse what they are writing/talking about; and then create content that has value for them. This is a time consuming and painful exercise. At times, you may feel the futility of the exercise, and wonder about creativity in content management. But all your creative efforts will go waste if your content is not directed at the right audience.
2. Writing skills
Social media writing is considerably different to web writing. For one, you use fewer words. Twitter, for instance, gives you a paltry 140 characters to communicate. Facebook rewards brevity. Medium insists on short posts. Tumblr was similarly created to encourage short blog posts. There is clearly a premium on words; the shorter the communication the more valuable it is. The same is true of headlines. They have to hook the fickle social media user in as few words as possible. The long, clickbait web headlines have no place on social media.
3. Video skills
Content management is no longer limited to creating highly readable text-based content. Content managers must know how to create video stories because video content has taken social media by storm. The two content formats require completely different skill sets, and have put most companies in a fix. They are realising that they need two different kinds of content managers: Text Editors and Video editors. Facebook recently published a report that said the most valued content on its site is videos. They are shared more, and generate more comments than any other form of content. Two years back, this pride of place was held by photographs. But they have been pushed back by the highly popular one to three minute videos.
4. Graphics
It is not fair to expect content managers to be creators of highly informative and visually pleasing infographics. But they should be able to generate information that can be converted into a powerful infographic. This is one skill that both text editors and video editors must acquire.
5. Social Media snippets
The success of content managers lies in how well they combine the different forms of media to create an enticing social media snippet. They can do so only if they are proficient with words, images and video. Two years ago, social media sites pulled the headline, the image and the first paragraph of a news report or a blog post to create a social snippet. The entire process was automated. Today, they insist that content managers tell their users why they must share this content.
6. Trend spotting
Content managers should be smart trend spotters. They must examine what’s trending on major social media sites, and create content that connects with their target audience. The chances of such content being browsed and shared is very high.
7. Content planning
Content managers must know how to develop a content calendar. This will help them decide the frequency of posts across social media sites. They then need to follow this calendar religiously, and ensure that relevant content is posted on the scheduled dates, time and social media platforms. It is important that there is a regularity in posting content.
8. Selection of content
An important responsibility of the content manager in a content-rich company is selection of the right content. Mainstream newspapers generate 500 plus news stories a day. Which ones should go on social media? And on which social media platform? What may work on Facebook may not work on Twitter or Linkedin. The same is true of photographs or video stories.
9. Social listening
Trend spotting is simple. But social listening is both tedious and painful. Content managers should develop a thick skin if they want to keep their sanity. Social media users can be abusive, vindictive and venomous. The content managers must learn to listen to them, whatever the provocation, and respond in a civilised manner.
10. Content Curation
Content managers must also be good curators. They must browse their audience-specific content and share it on their platforms. Such content need not be created by their team; it can be created by anyone on the net, including their competitors. Their audience will be very thankful to them for bringing useful content to its notice.
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