What is SMM, who is an SMM specialist and why businesses need it

What is SMM?

SMM stands for Social Media Marketing and means social media marketing. 

SMM is not just a promotion in social networks, it is a marketing, and communication strategy. 

SMM is a set of measures that are used to promote the brand. And social networks act as advertising channels. The term SMM can be considered broader than "marketing in social networks", because this area includes everything about communication with the consumer.

The primary task of SMM is to create a message (text, visual, audio, etc.) that will be communicated through social networks. And participation in this process further will be minimal.

An undoubted advantage is the increased trust of users in messages on social networks. And this is achieved through their internal algorithms based on connections between users.

The algorithms of social networks make it possible to effectively influence the target audience. Through recommendations, people see what they want to see, and it increases the chance of interactions on their part. 

And also the users of social networks themselves become distributors of advertising, by forwarding posts of your company to their friends, they increase your sales. But to achieve such a result, all aspects of promotion in social networks must be properly executed. This is where an SMM manager comes to the rescue.

How does SMM work?

The main tasks of SMM are: 

• Brand promotion, that is, achieving audience loyalty and fame (PR). 
• And attracting audiences from social networks to the brand sites. 

All this is achieved with the help of SMM tools such as:

• social media page;
• participation in informational communities;
• communication with the audience through personal messages, comments and other internal means of communication in social networks;
• direct advertising;
• hidden advertising;
• work on the media space;
• monitoring the attitude of the audience toward the brand.

SMM is a very dynamic area that requires constant monitoring of trends and creating its own innovations. At the same time, everything must be based on the interest of the brand's personal audience.

What are SMM strategies?

Without a strategy and a plan, it is impossible to achieve the main objectives of SMM. Three methods are best known:

• Build a community from the brand's own audience.
• With the help of advertising tools to achieve brand awareness and increase the sales of the product/service.
• Combined approach.

The classic strategy is constantly changing and keeping up with the development of platforms and users. A good SMM specialist regularly improves his methods. It is also possible to conclude support for effective social media marketing agencies.

Common mistakes in SMM

Newbies who try to do SMM on their own without the help of an SMM manager often make mistakes. Sometimes they are hard to notice immediately and after a lot of wasted time it turns out that there were such mistakes:

• Maintaining the page without prior analysis of the niche and competitors or incorrect analysis.
• Improper interaction with subscribers or no connection at all. (This includes improper administrator response to haters)
• Deleting negative comments, causing audience distrust.
• Violation of laws, norms and principles.
• Violation of the proportion of entertainment and informational content. Excessive exposure to informational content has a negative impact on audience growth and retention. The ideal formula of 80/20 in the direction of entertainment content.
• Lack of any promotion strategy.
• Uniform content or uninteresting for the target audience.

There can be other mistakes that will have a negative impact on the reputation of the brand. To avoid such mistakes and preserve the good name of the brand, you need an experienced SMM-manager.

What does an SMM manager do?

An SMM manager performs a huge number of tasks. His responsibilities include a variety of work: from the creation of visual and textual content to communicating with the audience and opinion leaders.

Let's analyze in detail each of the duties of the SMM manager and what it includes:

1. SMM-manager first develops a strategy, which he uses when writing a content plan. Namely:

• compiling a portrait of the target audience;
• Identification of interests and trends among the target audience;
• analysis of the niche;
• forming a base for the audience;
• selection of a social platform;
• development of a common behavioral strategy for all social networks;
• setting up channels and selection of tools to solve the main tasks of promotion;
• implementation of client loyalty system;
• placement of posts, publications, videos on social networks;
• implementation of all types of interaction with the audience.

 2. SMM-manager must have many skills, some of which are:

• managing and understanding the work of targeting advertising on social networks (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, etc.)
• managing all types of marketing;
• creating events for promotion;
• understanding the principles of analytics;
• use of services for optimization;
• ability to create channels and pages on social networks;
• ability to communicate accurately with the audience;
• ability to assign tasks to other professionals (copywriters, photographers, administrators, etc.).

3. Communication and content management are no less important duties of the SMM specialist. Briefly, they can be described as performing such tasks:

• changing the negative attitude of the audience to a positive one;
• increasing activity on the pages of social networks and on the company website;
• organizing online events (contests, drawings, surveys, etc.)
• support of users;
• development of info-trends;
• creating content maps for social networks;
• creating text content;
• finding partners and establishing useful relationships with them;
• preparing reports;
• understanding the ideas of the brand owner and the tone of voice of the brand.

In addition to the above responsibilities, SMM-manager additionally performs: work with the interfaces of social networks and websites (the face of the brand), work with opinion leaders (people who are the face of the audience).

Also, a good SMM-manager should be an expert in other advertising channels besides social networks. Because providing such services is also part of the duties:

• negotiating with the editors of online media;
• knowledge and application of social psychology for successful PR;
• media planning and media trading;
• setting up other advertising channels, understanding their work, and connecting with social networks.

How do I hire an SMM specialist to join my team?

Collaboration with an SMM manager is best maintained on an ongoing basis. This way, everything will be noticed, and the brand's face and the content will remain consistent, and stable.

You can find an SMM specialist on job submission and job search platforms, or on platforms that build and promote websites.

How much does it cost to hire an SMM specialist? 

The question of SMM manager salary of course interests pragmatic entrepreneurs. For you, we will answer as accurately as possible. 

According to the analysis of the platforms for providing and finding work in Ukraine (such as Work.ua and Rabota.ua), it became known that the average salary for the SMM manager is 20 000 UAH monthly (according to December 2022).

This amount is very variable, depending on your conditions and requirements. And it may go up to 40 000 + UAH, and go down to 7000 UAH. You will be able to solve the question of payment during the interview with the SMM manager.

What affects wages?

• Schedule (full-time, part-time, free schedule).
• Format of work (remote or in the office).
• A number of projects (there may be several sites and pages in social networks, then more time is required, and, accordingly, the payment will be more).

Who can be considered an SMM manager?

A person who has a college degree in public relations or a professional SMM course. The more successful projects in the SMM-manager's portfolio, the more his services will probably cost. 

To sum it up

Creating a successful brand with a positive reputation requires SMM. To avoid mistakes in this area, it is worth using the services of an SMM manager. An experienced specialist will quickly lead the brand to positive popularity and be able to retain it.