Not that long ago, being a Social Media Manager was not a thing. At least not a huge thing.

You had public relations and you had some social media power-users who loved their social media platforms and were able to see the potential when no one else could.

And then these two things – the public relations and the social media – joined forces.

You can bet all your likes and re-posts that the potential is universally recognized now.

I see it. You see it. And your potential future employer sees it. Everybody sees it.

According to the results aggregated by the SCORE network in 2018, 77% of small business owners use social media platforms for sales, online marketing, and customer service.

In this modern era, where more and more adults and professionals are using social media to conduct business and raise their brand awareness, it is no wonder that U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has predicted the 9% growth for social media jobs and public relations jobs in the period between 2016 and 2026.

I mean, even Queen Elizabeth is looking for someone to manage her Instagram account.

With all the eyes cast towards the clicks and the likes and the tweets and the stories, the time is definitely now to take action and get in on the party. More than ever people care about their online presence and their brand and want to find specialists who can help them in those endeavors.

Just like you should care about your own brand (aka Self-branding) and how to present it to a hiring manager when going after the Social Media Manager position that you dream of.

The first thing anyone will see is the look and the design of your resume. Here are some of the examples of brilliant custom made Social Media Manager Resume Templates that you can use.

Or you can keep on reading to learn how to write one yourself.

In this article you will:

• Find some of the best-looking examples for Social Media Manager Resumes Templates.
• Learn in’s and out’s of writing brilliantly relevant work history that will land you more interviews.
• Get the tips on how to tailor your skills and knowledge for the position you’re applying for and why that is important.
• All that you need to know to build a show-stopping resume for the Social Media Manager position

So…

Spending your day refreshing news feeds, talking with the audience and customers, thinking up fun hashtags and stories.

Sounds awesome, right?

And it kinda is!

If you love social networks, love new trends, and love interacting with other people, this job is the absolute bomb! And you should give it your best to land a career in social media.

But what separates a good social media manager from any modern social media account owner?

It is the ability to utilize the knowledge of social media to get the results that they want or that their clients want.

Some of the duties include:

• monitoring and posting to different social media platforms in order to raise awareness of the company’s brand, a product or a person,
• checking what happened regularly and using new and emerging trends to drive traffic,
• conceptualizing social media marketing campaigns and strategies in order to deliver a message or improve the public image of their client.

They know all the darkest and all the brightest corners of the social media and they know how to read crowds.

You are your own brand!

No pressure, but when you are creating a Social Media Manager Resume, the brand that you are trying to promote is yourself.

The audiences whose attention you are trying to capture and keep are the hiring manager and the company. What they are looking for will be dictated by the needs of the client or, if the company is big enough, their own needs.

In order to give the hiring team what they want, you need to convince them that in the sea of choices, you are the only logical one. And you have precious little time to achieve this – because the jobs are too few for the number of hopefuls knocking at the door.

You need to stand out.

Show them you can sell your brand.

Looking good in the process does not hurt your chances. And some of these custom made templates can help you get the advantage that you need.

How to start building the Social Media Manager Resume

So, start at the beginning – with the research.

Gather the available information about the company, about the position, about the audience and the customers.

Look at the job description for clues. More often than not, it will be full of words like design, record, research, generate, maintain, launch, analyze, support, develop, execute, track, perform, monitor, create, implement, report, etc.

Make note of these action verbs, Know them. Use them.

Seeing their own words in the lines of your resume will make the hiring managers want to look more closely.

Especially if you use them cleverly in the Resume Summary. This is the space at the top of your resume page, where you can write a short paragraph describing how your experiences can make their business grow and what you can do for them.

And you can use their own words to achieve this!

Another part of your resume should be Contact and Personal Information.

If the prospective employer likes you, they need to be able to find you easily and quickly.

Include your name, phone number, and a professional-looking email address.

Additionally, you should probably add the links to your own social media profiles, but only if you worked on them and you know they can help you. Otherwise, just don’t.

Applying for this position and owning an unmanaged or badly managed social media profile is just a huge no-no.

If you have such a profile and are hoping to become a Social Media Manager, you just might wanna consider putting a little more effort into it or just closing the bad profile altogether.

The Education and Experiences of a Social Media Manager

While a degree in marketing, social studies, business or design is always a plus, the truth is that many people who became social marketing managers have had years of experience managing their own personal social media accounts.

They’ve learned and honed their online marketing strategies in the wild.

By creating and managing their brands and being in touch with the online audience, they figured out the secret language of social media marketing. Doing the same for an actual company was the logical next step for many of them.

That is, in fact, probably the easiest and the most straightforward way of gaining the experience needed for an entry-level social media manager position.

Whatever you do or have done before, make sure to tailor the resume to their specific needs and asks. Even if you don’t have a lot of work experience, try to find the correlation between what you did and know and what the company is looking for and write about that.

As you gain more experience, this part will progressively become easier to do. You will be able to pick and choose from your wonder bag of past jobs, projects and skills ones that are the most relevant for the position you are applying to.

The layout or the format of your resume is important as well. There are a few different standard formats and each relevant for different types of positions.

The one most commonly used is probably the Reverse Chronological resume format.

It is what most hiring managers and HR people are used to, and if done well, can show off where you gained your experience and knowledge, how you gained it, and the ways that you utilized them to your advantage and the advantage of your employer.

Skills and achievements of a Social Media Managers

All Social Media people are techy. It is a simple fact.

The levels of techiness vary, but none of the love or the knack for social media would have been possible if there hadn’t been the initial curiosity about the technology, how it all worked, what were the best times to post to get the most likes (for Instagram it’s between 12 pm to 5 pm), etc.

As this branch of public relations grew, so have the available tools that can help Social Media Managers develop and execute strategies and marketing campaigns:

• From full-on analytics and management suites like Buffer
• To multiple-account management tools like HootSuite and Sprout Social
• To platform specific ones like TweetDeck or Later
• To general analytics, productivity and scheduling tools such as Google Analytics, Hubspot, or IFTTT

Mentioning how you used these apps to drive, grow and promote the brand and product of your previous employer will give you a clear advantage when trying to land a new one.

However, being techy and knowing which tools to use is nothing without the emotional, soft component.

A person can read all the data that they want and know all the trends that emerging anywhere in the world, but if they cannot use that knowledge in a way that will help their social media planning and campaigns, they will fail.

It cannot be stated enough – pick and curate what you are sharing with your employer. Show them whats relevant and what you can do for them. Nothing else.

Do not bombard them with every little thing you ever did or every little job position that you held.

That is what your LinkedIn CV is for.

Just an FYI, but there is a difference between a CV and a Resume.

Should you use a cover letter when applying for a Social Media Manager position?

In short – absolutely! YES!

If your resume tickles the hiring manager enough they will want to know more. And the is where the cover letter comes in.

In a cover letter, you will be able to tell them and show them more of yourself and your history.

But not too much.

A cover letter should be no more than a one-page summary of your experiences and history that are the most relevant for the job you are applying to. Focus on the action words and focus on explaining how you can help them on their journey.

Also, make sure to include your contact information here as well.

Match the style of your cover letter to the style of your resume. It should be obvious to the hiring manager whose story they are reading.

Check out some of the good-looking cover letter examples that you can use with your Social Media Manager resume.

That is not all, though.

All that research that you did at the beginning of the Social Media Manager job pursuit will prove itself useful once more!

Do not address the letter To Whomever it may concern. It is at best impersonal and at worst quite rude – especially in this day and age when the information is available and easy to come by.

Find out the name of your hiring manager and address them directly. It will make them feel as if they found something created specifically for them by someone who made an effort.

And they would be correct!

And it will make ALL the difference!

Some final thoughts

Writing a Social Marketing Manager Resume is not an easy task, especially given the nature of the position and its requirements.

It is essentially one of the qualifications to have an established and successful social media presence in order to know how to manage another’s. And having employers scout your personal social accounts is never easy. But in this situation especially so.

Manage your social accounts. Know your tools. Learn about your audience.

The Resume will write itself in the end.