Becoming a social media manager is often one of the top remote job recommendations you’ll find in a list of roles you can work from home, and while being a social media manager has incredible opportunity for career growth and income-earning potential, your ultimate success in becoming a social media manager hinges on a few key traits that will set you apart from the rest.
First, being specialized within an industry or niche, for example, becoming a spa social media manager who works exclusively with brick-and-mortar spa owners and/or aesthetic professionals who run an e-commerce skincare brand, is a surefire way to stand out as a social media management professional.
Secondly, possessing skills that extend beyond your ability to craft a post and push it live onto any given social media platform is crucial because in today’s pool of digitally-based professionals, everyone knows how to post to social media.
You, however, need to understand how to produce and post strategic content that generates trackable results for a business.
We’ve found that these five key traits are the ones every successful spa social media manager possesses, and when you develop them through tailored skills-based training paired with an interest for the aesthetics industry, you’ll be primed to be successful as a spa social media manager.
1 – Foundational Branding Knowledge
It’s not a logo, or fonts, or colors.
Those are visual markers for a brand, but the true essence of a brand is in the message it sends to its audience, the emotions it works to evoke, and its reputation for delivering that message and emotions consistently.
Take Nike, for example.
Yes, we visualize the swoosh or the tagline of “Just Do It,” but the key messages of power, persistence, and inner strength to achieve physical greatness are the foundation along with emotions of pride, achievement, and victory.
Brand strategy is a deep and highly nuanced layer of the overall marketing umbrella, but as a social media manager, having the foundations of branding down pat will not only help you to create more compelling social content, and do it more efficiently, but it will aid you in becoming an invaluable asset to any spa CEO who knows that you’re someone who understands their brand and can help evolve and grow it through your social media expertise.
2 – Strong Writing Skills
In today’s media landscape, the majority of social media content is largely focused on video content, but even with rapidly reduced attention spans among consumers, the ability to craft compelling written content, or copy, surrounding your video or image-based content is crucial.
Written captions, social media bios, and text-based graphics still make up a large part of a business’ social media real estate, and it’s written communication that often drives and directs your viewer to take the next step toward converting into a lead or sale for a spa.
You can craft the most beautiful Instagram Reel featuring a spa’s treatments and services, but if you can’t complement and frame that visual with words that help the viewer cement what they’ve just watched or guide them in what action you want them to take next, it only takes a quick flick of the thumb for your viewer to move on.
Compelling copy takes the attention you’ve captured with visual media and directs it to take an action.
So whether you’ve always been told you’re a good writer or you love to tell a story, finessing your writing chops will serve your social media management efforts well.
3 – An Eye and Ear for Story
Speaking of story, our brains are wired for it.
All humans find connection through story, and this applies to when us humans are in “consumer” mode, too.
Harkening back to possessing an understanding of brand foundations, knowing the key elements of building and telling a story will help you in creating content that truly stands out in a social media feed as well as ensuring that the content you are crafting fits into the greater strategic picture of the spa brand you’re helping to build and grow.
Now if you’re thinking “how in the world do I know if I have an eye or ear for story?,” we’ve got good news — you already do!
Think of movies you’ve watched and books you’ve read, they all follow a similar story structure of: character having a conflict, character meeting a guide that helps them navigate the challenge to overcome that conflict, a pivotal point in the story where a “do or die” situation occurs (called the climax), and then the resolution and what we hope is the “happily ever after.”
There’s a reason we’re always trying to anticipate “what happens next” and thinking that some stories are predictable and that’s because we, even subconsciously, know how all stories work.
Having an eye and ear for story in the marketing context of being a spa social media manager simply means understanding the journey that your ideal client or customer is on and how the spa you’re managing social media for can become the trusted guide in that person’s story.
Thankfully, one of the best ways to develop this trait is simply by creating a volume of content over time as well as learning how to analyze the data behind that content to see what story-based content is resonating the most with your spa’s audience.
4 – A Knack for Tech
We’re not talking coding-level tech knowledge (you can take a big sigh of relief), but if you’re someone who finds playing around on a new platform fun or exploring new tech features exciting, becoming a social media manager will be right up your alley.
With social media platforms routinely creating new sub-channels, features, and testing out different ways for their communities to engage on the platform, there’s always something new for a social media manager to experiment and get creative with.
So if you love playing around with new features and get excited by the prospect of being able to do something different to grab attention or connect with people, becoming a spa social media manager will not only give you the opportunity to get paid while exploring something you’re interested in.
5 – A Love for Routine + An Aptitude for Adaptability
If there’s one thing you can count on in becoming a social media manager, it’s that there is a steady pace of something changing and emerging (like those aforementioned new features and sub-channels that pop up and launch without warning).
However, being a results-focused social media manager also requires organization and crafting systems to ensure you’re generating the results and hitting the goals you set out to achieve for the business you’re working for.
Thus, if you’re someone who loves having a solid work routine, but also likes variety in terms of what specific tasks and deliverables you’re working on and how you get to flex your creative muscles in your role, social media is the place to be.
As a social media manager, you’ll find that the job responsibilities mesh together the perfect blend of scheduled and systemized meets on-the-fly creation meets tracking and analytics meets “let’s give this a try!” style experimenting.
As you can see, becoming a social media manager, or more specifically, a spa social media manager, is so much more than being paid to “post to Instagram” or take pretty pictures.
Social media management is a role that requires creativity, strategic thinking, and a skilled mind that knows how to thread together a variety of elements to bring someone from being a random scroller on social media to a potential sale and customer.
Whether you’re seeking a brand new career path or want to take your digital marketing skills to the next level and get further specialized by applying them to the spa industry, our certification, curriculum, and community were all designed to ensure your future success as a spa social media manager.