No doubt 2009 was the year of Social Media, when lots of companies recognised the need of participating in the online conversation. The importance of this marketing discipline brought the role of Social Media/ Community Manager to the agency or company team structure. Some agencies preferred to transform their digital or online PR staff into a social media strategists, however there is more than digital and PR experience a social media guru would need. If you are a marketing specialist, wondering if your skills and experience would qualify for that juicy and probably 2010’s most wanted marketing job, or if you are an employer looking to hire someone to be responsible about the company social media strategy, here is the job description.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Research

• Constantly monitor and be aware of current trends in social media, networking and monitoring tools.
• Be on top of industry trends; monitor most engaging topics – most re-tweeted, most downloaded, most shared, etc. by industry.
• Research on key competitors for every new client – where are they active, what social media tactics do they use, how do they engage.
• Research on best practices – what works best and what- doesn’t.
• Identify key/targeted networking platforms, forums and blogs by industry and solution area.

• Research on target audience – what are their interests, where the target public is: online spaces/ networks/ communities; how many hours on average they spend online and where

Implement

• Be the eyes and ears of the brand as if your own reputation depended on it
• Minute by minute participate in conversations that surround the brand content, answer comments, be a mediator.
• Identify threats and opportunities in user generated content surrounding the brand.

• Establish and cultivate positive relationships with key/targeted bloggers, and/or identify brand marketers and PR managers who should be monitoring and influencing these relationships.
• Develop and manage pages on popular consumer social networking websites such as Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, Second Life, MySpace, etc. (depending on targeted channels) as well as popular technology sites intended to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to the site.
• Coordinate social media activities by actively engaging in consumer and industry conferences, blogs, video sharing, online chats, wikis, etc., to promote brand messaging and increase brand awareness resulting in driving brand traffic to the site.
• Engage in regular participation within the customer community, including the review of user blogs, wikis and communities such as sascommunity.org.
• Recruit, develop and coach new bloggers and blog editors.
• Manage the day-to-day blogger activities; proactively identifying and developing blog posts, recruiting bloggers and assigning blog ideas to others.

• Create content for feeds and snippets in various social media sites.
• Help with making corporate website social media and search-engine friendly – from fan badges, share/save buttons, to optimising tags, page descriptions, RSS feeds

Monitor and Report

• Track and monitor the success of online initiatives both qualitative and quantitative resuls (i.e. impressions, reach and influence)
• Prepare case studies and campaign results presentations
• Create and update daily, weekly and monthly reports

• Analyze campaigns and translate anecdotal or qualitative data into recommendations and plans for revising the social media campaigns.

Internal relations

• Develop company social media policy, as a part of the employee guidelines.
• Educate staff on the implementation and use of new technologies.
• Promote social media activities internally.

Skills

• Demonstrated experience with Web 2.0 channels & great affinity for learning new technologies.
• Strong relationship building skills, including negotiation & executive interaction, ability to coach others.
• Have excellent project management skills.
• Ability to develop a business vision for social media, including goals & results
• Leadership/decision-making: skilled at articulating to executives and internal teams the importance of social applications and is able to make calm recommendations during crises. Be able to exercise good judgment with quick response time.
• Flexible communication skills: Strong editorial writer. Able to present needs and plans and communicate internally, has a distinct, personable voice for external engagement. Manage negative situations toward positive outcomes.
• Be a team-player and a positive-thinker.
• Be budget-savvy: manage budget while hitting performance goals.

Tell me that you don’t love to be entertained! Willing to be entertained is something that we constantly look for. Yes, and we look for it in even the simplest things like reading your newspaper on your way to work, chatting with your colleagues (those “stolen moments” in the kitchen while making coffee), or “playing” with your new handset on the tube. There is nothing wrong with that. Some may say we all keep a little kiddo deep inside us, and this “little kiddo” drives our “play instinct”. True or not, play is an important part of our day-to-day life – it helps us escape from the stress, and increases the “feel good” factor.

Landing this into marketing communications, entertaining consumers via brands is probably one of the most powerful tools for creating obsession. And driving sales, of course! Live music event, shopper experience, interesting application on Facebook, Second Life presence, mobile platform… the opportunities for entertaining consumers are endless. Once “in the game”, people will love you and trust you, and will buy whatever you sell them. But how do we get there? –

Step 1: You’ve got a brand. And you’ve got your campaign objectives. Include another point here – “make my target feel good, feel entertained”. Well, first step is to “invent” a way of entertainment through the brand. Choose your marketing tools, according to your public’s profile and interests. Are you going to develop marketing campaign for male young professionals? – digg in recent technology opportunities, get some ideas from the latest gadgets, “adults games” and tech widgets. Once you’ve got your idea how to entertain…

Step 2: Get people’s attention. Plan your media channels carefully – which marketing tactics will transmit your idea most successfully. Research on opportunities, on current trends and competitors…And get creative! Make your customers “expect the unexpected”, surprise and engage. Not just big-scale events might be entertaining; many social media platforms provide thousands of opportunities to create “fun and play” around your brand. Digital marketing, online games and contests could also create top online brand entertainment, if used properly. You think, so people can laugh.

Step 3: Whatever marketing tool you’ve chosen to entertain, never underestimate your consumers. The line between creating a playful experience (which will drive sales), and making people laugh AT your brand (which will drive sales down) is very thin. So be careful. It might be an online game, a fashion show, or a music event – whatever it is, you must keep up with your high standards. By creating engaging, memorable and positive playful experience, people will lock your brand in their minds together with that experience, and will (partly consciously, partly) unconsciously fall in love with it. If you manage to “drive people crazy” about your brand, you’ve discovered the art of winning through entertaining.