What do social media marketers do on a day to day basis?

Great questions Clareta!

Posting on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook is only one of the many things marketers are responsible for and only one small piece of the puzzle. Great content requires a lot of prior research, strategic and creative thinking, and trial and error. Before anything gets posted on social media, marketers must determine what content will attract the most attention and traffic. To do that, they will analyze data collected from content posted on social media in the past to see what worked and what did not.

The first step in becoming a great marketer is knowing the business you're working for and industry it's in inside and out. Get to know the competitors, the company's goals, and have a deep understanding of it's target audience. Once you've done that you can start to implement innovative ways of reaching your customers. After anything gets published, the content must then be tracked and monitored to determine whether or not it has been successful. This includes everything from how many views and shares it's gotten to whether or not it got the customer to go to the company's website to (ideally) make a purchase. Social media marketers are also responsible for tracking other social media activity (like competitors, anything in the same space/industry related, news-worthy, etc.) as well as new technology so that the company stays on top of what it's customers are (or could possibly be) using! Trending topics are also really important. Social media is crawling with all kinds of different stories, opinions, and trending topics, so staying on top of what's being talked about is crucial in determining what you should be posting.

The most successful social media marketers are those who are creative (always thinking outside the box), analytical (data-driven), curious, resourceful, and persistent. Content creates connections and relationships with customers, so in order to be successful in content-heavy social media marketing you must also have a way with words!

The great thing about social media marketing is that it is always changing, so each day is never exactly the same. You absolutely work with a team, but how big the team is depends on the size of the company. Marketing has to be collaborative, especially with other departments like sales and customer service, in order to be truly successful. There are surely times when you would work independently, and without a doubt times you will get stressed, but that comes with almost every job. The important thing to do is to stay organized and take deep breaths!

There are several different roles within marketing (aside from just social media) you should also explore. I would check out marketing blogs like Inbound Hub (http://blog.hubspot.com/) and Content Standard (http://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/). I also highly recommend starting a blog of your own. I hope this information is helpful. If you have any other questions let me know!

It's so exciting you're getting ready to apply for college! I wish you all the best.

Lindsey gave a comprehensive response. I would expand/add the following -

Content strategy - identifying current events, seasonality, product launches, and other events that can be worked into an editorial calendar and coordinated with other marketing channels. This ties into Lindsey's comment about research - be a subject matter expert, know about trends, set trends. Understand the purpose of each channel and what is appropriate and liked in each channel (eg timely information, links are great for Twitter; photos and stories are great for Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram). All channels need to work together but the same content does not and should not be in all the places...

Emergency response - the social media channel is often the first to sense customer displeasure and potential brand crisis issues, and it is their responsibility to research, escalate, resolve (nip in the bud before a problem grows). As well as removing things that could be seen as insensitive in light of a larger public emergency. This is a crucial role and the responsiveness and sensitivity and common sense are key to managing crisis situations.

Customer feedback - social media is often a great source of product/service feedback. Ideas for product innovation and enhancements need to be coordinated with the product team and the customer support team.

Paid advertising - while the best social media is driven by providing value and interesting content to your target community, a part of a social media manager's job is leveraging strong content to gain new users. If you have a successful post, you might pay to boost that post, or to drive traffic to the website, or repurpose content in other media. To do this effectively, you need to understand Google Analytics, tracking and conversion, and new technologies that allow, for examples, ads to follow people who have been to your site to encourage them to come back.

Analytics - as suggested above, and in Lindsey's comments - social media is very data driven. Understanding what campaigns work and why, analyzing who your target audience is and where they are on the web, tracking and reporting results will all be part of the job.

Goal oriented - What is the tone that your company wants to have, what are you trying to achieve, how will you know if you are successful, what are you doing to attract new users, what are you using to retain old users, how are you converting their interest into profitable activities? You have to know what you are trying to achieve, you can't fix what you don't measure, and you have to have a larger vision.

However, at the end of the day, the key to effective social media marketing is authenticity, inspiration, humor, and a dedication to having a two-way conversation with your community (not a bullhorn). Be unselfish not promotional, helpful not pushy, and entertaining. People can opt out of following you at any time, so be a part of your community.

The above already do a good job answering the question. Here are a couple of good articles I found:

http://www.digitalsherpa.com/blog/the-typical-day-of-a-social-media-specialist/

http://www.schools.com/visuals/how-to-become-a-social-media-marketing-specialist.html

Good luck!

I agree to all that was said before. I just like to add that in my job I also bring top players together with the game studio in regular video conferences.