Information in this blog post obtained from HubSpot, Copyblogger, and Sprout Social.
Are you getting ready to enter the work force and begin your career in social media marketing? It can be scary, right? You might have numerous questions on whether or not you have the skills to be a successful marketer. That's why we're here to share some tips with you to take and utilize in the future. Throughout this article, we will discuss different abilities you might need as a social media marketer such as various technical skills, the importance of grabbing your reader’s attention and also finding a happy medium between work and yourself.
Important Skills as a Marketer
With the large increase in digital transformation and large increase in data available, marketers are in need of a variety of skills to perform tasks. Don’t stress, you likely possess and are capable of much more than you are giving yourself credit for. Employers are often looking for individuals with technical skills. These can be known as soft or hard skills and they can help you complete job-specific tasks often gained through training or education as explained further by HubSpot.
Soft skills can be an important aspect of landing a job and these skills might be comprised of time management, adaptability, organization skills or collaboration. While there are many more, understanding what you can excel in will help you gain more confidence in your abilities. Hard or technical skills is an evolving process as you are never done learning and growing as a marketer. Those skills that might be necessary to possess or grow upon could be different video or audio production, SEO marketing, content creation or knowledge in graphic design software.
Capturing the Attention of Your Audience
As you begin to market your target market, it will be important to have the capabilities to grab the reader or customer’s attention and captivate them with what you have to say. This is necessary in all areas of marketing. You might have great ideas, services and products to offer, but it will not get you anywhere if you can't get them to look in your direction first. You might even face roadblocks before getting to your target audience. Included might be the increased competition, information overload or multiple means of distribution.
There are a variety of strategies you can take when focusing on creating content that is going to appeal to your audience. Discovering what works best for your business will allow you a higher success rate moving forward into the future. When trying to grab the attention of your buyer, try these seven attention-grabbing techniques that were published by Copyblogger.
1. Grab the reader’s attention in the first sentence: Try this by opening with a story or providing an aspect of your content that makes it interesting or different. Reflecting upon a personal experience is another option as well.
2. Help them see what you see: Make your audience perceive what you perceive and try to make your position crystal clear to create an easy understanding. Inform them on a topic they didn't even realize they needed to learn more about.
3. Make it personal and add emotion: By making content personal and adding emotion, you make it important in the eyes of your audience. This adds clarity to your content and makes people want to talk about your business.
4. Don’t take chances with attention: Don’t try to be witty or take chances on language or visuals. The time you have to make an impression on your buyers is limited, so don’t waste it. Inside jokes or jokes inside the industry will not be acceptable in this case as well as it could be unclear or offensive to your audience.
5. Follow up with a strong second: Make sure your information is actually valuable and worth their time. Make it relatable to to their needs and answer questions they might have.
6. Use pictures to grab attention: With this, it allows you to break up text and give your audience something else to view that still relates to your content. Focus on adding relevant pictures that can help your audience understand what you're trying to get across.
7. Encourage questions from customers: If your audience is asking questions, they are actively engaging and wanting to learn more. This will also provide a better chance for your company that they'll choose to come back in the future.
Prioritizing Time for Yourself
So far, we’ve talked about different skills you might need to fill your role and how important it is to be able to grab the attention of your target buyer or audience. While that is all fantastic, you can’t forget to take care of yourself in the meantime to ensure you are being the best marketer you can be. It’s important to put yourself out there and work hard to establish yourself, but you don’t want to battle burnout either.
As some point, you start to feel drained mentally. You don’t have to be present and available 24/7 by any means either. Setting time for yourself and prioritizing being active in things you enjoy is also important. Sprout Social suggests starting with easy, simple things. This could mean taking an actual lunch break where you don’t check your phone every time you get a notification, but instead take time away to refocus your attention.
Becoming the best social media marketer you can be is a process that doesn’t occur over night. It is a journey that requires trial and error to allow you to discover what works best for you and what you excel at as an employee and colleague. Being aware of soft and technical skills an employer is searching for can help you during your development, but the possibilities of your future really are endless. One key factor is any type of marketing is being able to successfully grab the attention of your audience. Luckily, there are a variety of ways to do this and we were able to cover a few within this article. Lastly, working hard and establishing yourself as a marketer is without a doubt important, however; taking care of yourself physically and mentally in the process is just as vital. Enjoying the little things and prioritizing time for yourself is going to not only help you in your personal life but also in your career.
For more information in regards to 5 career paths for social media marketers, click here to read a post by my colleague Trinity.
Resources
Hill, C. (2022, February 15). How to become a successful social media consultant. Sprout Social. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-consultant/
Hoeck, M. (2021, February 4). How to grab your reader's attention. Copyblogger. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://copyblogger.com/capture-reader-attention/
Kirsch, K. (2021, November 19). 20 technical skills every marketer needs. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/technical-skills
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