A Day in the Life: Social Media Manager

Ever wonder what a social media manager does all day? If so, check out the below: one social media manager tells Vault what she does during each minute of her day at work.

A Day in the Life: Social Media Manager

6:00 AM: I wake up and get dressed and ready for work. I login to Scoop.it to reshare any appropriate articles on social business strategy and thinking (to my personal profiles and blog). Then I check on company social sites for activity.

6:30-7:10 AM: During my commute to work, I listen to an audio business book to learn about new concepts and thinking. My current business book is The First 90 Days, by Michael Watkins.

7:15-8:00 AM: Arrive at work. I check work email and my calendar, and review all Google alerts, or monitoring reports around keywords, company name, company C-level executives, motion and control related topics, and any current campaign efforts. I flag some for sharing on the company social media accounts and then might pass on links to other individuals. For those that are shared, I handle the main brand accounts myself but have other staff to handle careers and some divisions. I review any questionable commentary with our vice president of external affairs and director of corporate communications. We have developed a response matrix that provides triage guidelines (think of this as an emergency room procedure to determine risk, danger, and reaction) for positive, negative, or inappropriate comments in any social media location. This flow chart helps us make decisions on how quickly to react, whom to inform, and what to say and do as follow up.

8:00-9:00 AM: Dedicated work time on social strategy framework, social media governance, and development of programs for various departments.

9:00-9:30 AM: I double check my schedule and postings for ongoing college recruiting social media campaign, check in via phone with outsourced agency that is doing the admin posting of supplied content, and evaluate pictures emailed from prior day career fair for inclusion in posting on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Our college recruiting effort is a project to develop brand awareness, judge time involvement, and develop best practice procedures for our divisions and corporate recruiters for improving our hiring of new entry-level talent/trainees. It is part of a larger social media initiative around talent acquisition and employee empowerment. The campaign is a four-month intensive promotion and engagement effort at each of the college campuses we visit this year and an eight-month ongoing connection and engagement strategy thereafter. It involves, video platforms, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

9:30-10:30 AM: Review upcoming trade show event in Germany with marketing services lead for group. Determine integration points with email campaign and four-week time frame leading up to and after event. Review all images, content links, and content postings that are preplanned and scheduled. Determine response turnaround for real-time pictures from event.

10:30–11:30 AM: Meet with new hire—a user interface manager—to determine overlap support and collaboration points as well as discuss mutual biking interest and exciting things to do in Cleveland.

11:30 AM–12:00 PM: I review upcoming events and reposting schedule for social pages along with needs of media/images for all global events.

12:00–12:30 PM: I conduct online research for various social key performance indicators for strategy measurement of success and case studies in B2B space; research and order new book for return on investment thinking in social media.

12:30–1:00 PM: Lunch at desk from corporate cafeteria.

1:00–1:30 PM: I talk via telephone with a corporate liaison from an academic institution to plan dates for onsite benchmarking for social recruiting effort, branding, and technology development.

1:30–2:00 PM: I contact the help desk after having Internet and network trouble. I can’t do any work online on my computer, so I check social sites via my iPhone and read printed out whitepapers.

2:00–3:15 PM: Digital asset management software training. We recently implemented a global media asset system to better manage all our media such as articles, photographs, brochures, logos, videos, presentations, and related content. Now everyone needs to get trained and begin the involved uploading process. This will help to de-silo [de-compartmentalize] the organization and make sure only the most current info is shared.

3:15–3:30 PM: I arrange presentations to various divisions on corporate wide social media efforts.

3:30–4:00 PM: I work with the interactive Web developer to select photos and build templates across all social platforms for cover and profile consistency.

4:00–4:30 PM: I update the bimonthly agenda and slides for global social media steering committee (stakeholder group).

4:30–5:00 PM: I participate in a phone call with European Digital Strategy Group for posting a job opportunity and to discuss an upcoming advanced class on enterprise social strategy development that starts the next day. We will collaborate on the project for the next eight weeks. The participants are from Germany, Norway, Denmark, Azerbaijan, and the United States

5:00–6:15 PM: After work fitness class in corporate facility

6:15–7:00 PM: Do a quick review of corporate social site status and last email check before heading home.

7:00–7:35 PM: I listen to an audio book on my way home—a fun fiction book this time.

7:35–10:00 PM: Personal time. I often work on a blog post for my silent sports blog column and for my related Facebook page. I also post images and comment on broader social media strategy and knowledgeshare to my personal blog, where all my social links can be found.

10:00 PM: I do one last check of company Web pages before heading to bed.

This article is an excerpt from our Career Guide to the Internet and Social Media.

Wendy Soucie is now a management consultant who works with clients in the Wisconsin area and throughout the Midwest. She trains clients to use social business relationships and social media tools through the use of group presentations and private one-on-one training customized to achieve your goals.