Social Media is not just for fun, It can be a high potential career option. Read How?

My technically challenged grandmother is quite anti-social media. She thinks people are going crazy. People of all kinds - Old, young, students, professionals. She keeps complaining how so much of an individual's time these days is spent on the social media. She feels this is impacting careers, academics, family time, sleep, social life, and health. She has strong opinions and could have been advocating her powerful views to the world if given a chance. But how could she? Until she uses social media herself! Strange, ironical, isn't it?

Social Media is fun, a brilliant way to connect with the world, a great way to pass idle time.

• People tweet about how their day is going
• Instagram their “work-out” pictures
• Use facebook to tell the world which new place they are travelling to and
• Snapchat what they are eating.
• Stay active on LinkedIn all the time

You’ll find social media profiles of the who’s who on the internet, and there would be no brand – mind you, no brand which does not advertise itself on the social media.

The social media industry is ever evolving – new features, new opportunities, new trends! Be it “Facebook Facial Lenses" or "Instagram Stories", there is something new that keeps coming up. This indeed makes the social media space complex. With the inevitable relevance of social media for businesses and brands, there is a dire need for people to understand the social media space for all its nitty-gritty.

• Managing Social Media Campaigns
• Building Relationships with Customers
• Promoting products and services

All require an analytical and a creative bent of mind. With the ever-changing space, it is no joke to keep abreast with what is happening herein and then build strategies accordingly. This is something that makes the "Social Media", not just a fun activity but a serious platform that needs to be leveraged cautiously, thus giving rise to a number of career opportunities in the field. Here's a sneak-peak into the social media spaces where one could make a career:

Advertising:

• Social Media Advertising is and will continue to be an incredible and a relevant platform for advertising. With more and more people becoming social media savvy, the platform has immense potential. This is why businesses, both young and old like to stick to it.
• Social Media Advertising requires a team of experts who are able to gauge consumer behaviour on social media and plan what kind of ad to produce and how to place it.

Content:

• Content has always been the “king” of any kind of marketing. Content for social media is unique in itself. What your ad will look like has a large bearing on how it will be perceived. Usually, content for social media needs to be short, catchy and quirky.
• Content goes beyond words. The images you use, the colours you put in, the “call-to-action": everything has an impact.
• Good content is one which attracts, informs, entertains and inspires. The winning formula for translating an ad/post into a sale is something that requires both expertise and experience. This is something that makes “content” and important space to build a career.

Data Analysis:

• Social Media Marketing keeps giving insights. How many people are viewing your ad, how many are talking about it, how many have actually gone ahead and made a purchase? All this data means nothing unless analyzed.
• Sure, various social media tools are available to help you understand this data, yet making sense of it requires experience, precisely why this space becomes yet another opportunity for those looking for careers in social media

Relationship Building and Management:

• This can never be overemphasized, and is hence slowly emerging as an integral part of social media marketing. In an age where competition is so fierce and customers are looking for the best deals, it is indeed important to keep in touch with them.
• Be it answering their queries, or sending them regular emails: this is becoming a whole new activity altogether.

What do you need to build a career in this hemisphere? Well, quite a diverse range of skills

• A flair for numbers
• A creative bent of mind
• The desire to stay up-to-date
• Good analytical abilities

Investing in the above-mentioned areas can yield great returns over time given the rising relevance of social media in the marketing space. As a Social Media Marketer, your job will be to promote content through ads, posting and sharing, in a way that drives traffic to the company's website. Amidst this, you will be required to engage with the target audience on a regular basis.

Salaries in the field are immensely satisfying once you are able to make a mark for yourself. Growth will easily come with experience and the contentment of having driven a marketing campaign will only add more feathers to your cap. You can enroll in a full-time course or take up an online course. The future of Social Media Marketing is incredibly bright and now is the best time to leverage this, leaving behind a decade-old myth that social media is just for fun.

Next time, your grandmother complains that you are wasting your time on Facebook or Twitter, tell her that you're on your way to planning a great career for yourself!

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