10 Essential Characteristics of a Successful Social Media Professional

A Social Media Professional or consultant is usually entrusted with the strong reponsibility of enhancing the online presence of a website through various social media channels. Social Media Marketing is an interesting job once you have hit the right track and are in full flow. Social Media Marketing has also become one of the best career opportunities for those interested in online marketing and actually there is a shortage of quality social media consultants world wide.

To be a successful social media professional, there are many things that you need to work on. Here I would like to provide 10 points that I think is essential for anyone aspiring to become a successful social media marketing professional.

1) Online Marketing Knowledge
Online Marketing Knowledge is the basic requirement for all social media professionals, and without the basic knowledge of Internet Marketing one cannot go far as a social media professional.

2) Knowledge of  SEO
Search Engine Optimization is the process of enabling website to get relevant organic traffic and this includes a lot of research and market study to get implemented. Since a social media consultant is always engaged with online marketing activities, he should have good knowledge of SEO and other search engine ranking algorithms.

3) Social Media Channel Identification
If a customer comes with his website for social media marketing, the social media consultant should be able to quickly identify the right social media channel or relevant social media sites to promote that site. Different social media sites have audiences with different behavior and hence a SM consultant should be able to detect from which social media site he can promote his client more effectively and efficiently.

4) Strong Branding Knowledge
Branding is an essential ingredient of any marketing activities and a social media professional should have enough knowledge about branding and different ways to achieve it.

5) Knowledge About Social Media Content Development
Social Media marketing needs different types of content which suits the interest of respective social media channel’s audiences. The content should be made as compelling, catchy and simple as possible. There are certain thing to take care while writing content for social media marketing and as a social media consultant one must be able to have enough knowledge about the ways to write and develop content for SMM.

6) Ability to Identify the Taste of Audience
On whatever social media channels a SM consultant is working, he should be able to identify the taste and interest of the audience. This helps him to market his website content in a much more effective way.

7) Active Engagement with Audience
Engagement is a mandatory activity in all social media sites and you should be able to effectively engage and communicate with the social media audience for better Social media marketing results.

8) Patience
One cannot achieve social media success overnight and you need to take your own time before you build a strong reputation around your social media channels. At times you may hit success instantly, but on the other hand there would be instance when you might take a little time to embrace success.

9) Desire to Learn More
Social Media Marketing is a never ending learning curve and every day you can see new and update social media sites, feature etc. So you should have the strong desire to learn about the latest social media technologies to go ahead with your social media career.

10) Strong Social Media Profiles
This one is the main thing and without this you cannot ever claim to be a social media professional. You should have a strong social media profiles atleast in your major top 5 social media sites. It is impossible to have great profiles in all the social media channels, but you need to have strong profiles in atleast few of them.