Social Media Expertise for Managers and Entrepreneurs

Social media expertise have developed dramatically since AI has come into the image. To maintain tempo with these modifications, social media managers should develop specialised expertise that complement AI-driven developments in content material technique, analytics and viewers engagement. Advertising and marketing leaders additionally want social media advertising expertise to assist social groups do their greatest work.

On this article, we’ll discover how AI has reshaped the position of social media managers. Plus, we’ll checklist the social media expertise social media managers and advertising leaders should grasp to remain aggressive.

How have social media supervisor expertise developed?

be an excellent social media supervisor has modified. Just a few years in the past, social media managers had been responding to social community fragmentation and dynamic modifications in SEO (search engine optimisation). Right this moment, they’re optimizing content material creation, managing on-line communities and offering extra personalised buyer care—whereas discovering new methods to make use of AI.

In response to The 2025 Sprout Social Index™, a very powerful practical expertise for social media managers are social listening, information storytelling and inventive route. Essentially the most worthwhile mushy expertise embody mission administration, model voice improvement and strategic partnership constructing.

AI helps scale these expertise, but it surely doesn’t exchange them, particularly as a result of social practitioners want a lot of them to supply unique content material.

How social media supervisor expertise have modified since AI emerged

Ability specialization is the most important total change AI has introduced on. A 2024 evaluation of fifty social media job descriptions discovered that social media job duties have gotten extra refined and data-driven.

In response to Sprout’s Q1 2025 Pulse Survey, listed here are the highest three specialised roles entrepreneurs wish to add to their staff.

1. Social media analyst OR social media artistic director
2. Influencer advertising lead
3. Social media operations/mission supervisor

AI is altering the sport, however social media managers are nonetheless calling the photographs. By leveraging AI-powered instruments for duties like scheduling and writing alt textual content, they’re streamlining workflows and releasing up time for high-level technique and creativity. With AI as their assistant, social practitioners can give attention to what they do greatest: creating partaking content material that drives outcomes.

Sprout’s built-in AI performance helps with all the pieces from sentiment evaluation to predictive analytics, multi function platform, empowering social media groups to anticipate tendencies and optimize their methods in real-time.

If you wish to sharpen your expertise for 2025 and past, watch the video under. We function our prime 5 expertise for the following few years, together with AI and information storytelling.

Degree up your social media expertise with the proper social instruments

As you grasp the abilities on this article, begin leveraging a social media administration instrument to additional your social success.

Check out Sprout social with a free trial, or schedule a demo to be taught extra.

11 social media supervisor expertise to additional your profession

If you wish to grow to be a social media supervisor or develop your profession as one, these are the important thing expertise it’s essential to advance your profession. As a substitute of contemplating AI a ability, contemplate it a instrument that will help you perform the abilities under extra effectively and successfully. Listed here are 11 important expertise each social media supervisor must thrive.

1. Communication

Robust communication expertise are important for advancing your social media profession. From writing a quick to presenting marketing campaign insights, social media managers should successfully talk concepts to a variety of stakeholders.

Communication expertise are much more indispensable when you think about the breadth of inside and exterior audiences social media managers collaborate with frequently, from groups as various because the authorized and inventive departments to followers and even social platform companions.

There are two essential issues to remember on the subject of communication:

• When speaking internally, articulate your concepts and plans to decision-makers and cross-functional companions. This may very well be about your content material distribution plan or the income affect you anticipate from a marketing campaign.
• You additionally want to speak persistently with exterior stakeholders, similar to creators or influencers. Clearly outline expectations, marketing campaign objectives and the way you’ll collaborate with them.
• Communication additionally applies to the way you have interaction within the feedback. Sprout’s Improve by AI Help offers 4 completely different tones for buyer care, serving to you write considerate and on-brand replies quicker.

Sources to construct your communication expertise

• Presentation template: Use this social media technique deck template to successfully talk your social technique to the management staff.
• TED Talks on communication: Hear from among the world’s most inspiring audio system on bettering your social conversations, digital communications and storytelling skills.

2. Writing

Social media managers need to be wonderful copywriters who embody and improve their model’s voice on social. From witty, attention-grabbing advert copy to well timed commentary, you must know tips on how to write concise copy that speaks to your viewers.

The excellent news is that AI will help you draft submit captions quicker. Sprout’s AI Help affords copywriting assist instantly inside the Compose Window, producing captions in your model’s voice based mostly in your model’s top-performing posts or a customized subject. Price noting: Even in the event you use AI instruments to generate content material, you continue to want enhancing expertise to evaluate and regulate the copy to make sure it aligns together with your expectations and model voice.

Efficient writers know tips on how to tailor their writing for various audiences and platforms. For instance, whereas you need to use as much as 2,200 characters in your Instagram captions, information has proven that the most partaking size is between 1-50 characters.

Sources to assist with writing

• Grammarly: This free instrument checks your grammar and proofreads your content material whereas supplying you with prompts to make your copy extra compelling.
• Hemingway Editor: Use this web site and app to make your writing extra concise and readable. Whereas it’s geared extra towards long-form writing, it’s also possible to use it to create impactful social media posts.
• Meta Blueprint: Meta affords free programs that train you greatest practices for writing partaking posts, advert copy and captions for Instagram and Fb.

3. Artistic route

In an oversaturated social panorama, differentiation typically comes all the way down to artistic route. A powerful artistic technique stops you from chasing any development and ensures your content material is partaking and audience-centric whereas nonetheless aligning nicely together with your model.

It takes artistic route to:

• Plan and produce revolutionary social media concepts
• Form a constant, platform-specific aesthetic that resonates together with your viewers
• Lead productive brainstorms that carry out teammates’ greatest concepts
• Develop and develop your model’s voice and visible id
• Information artistic decision-making

A fantastic artistic technique additionally considers how audiences have interaction together with your content material throughout platforms. Utilizing a instrument like SproutLink turns your bio hyperlink right into a clickable touchdown web page, permitting for extra artistic content material presentation and bridging the hole between inspiration and motion.

Gymshark’s TikTok is an excellent instance of artistic route carried out nicely. The model has constructed an enormous following by tapping into health tendencies, influencer collaborations and relatable gymnasium tradition humor. The content material feels native to TikTok whereas nonetheless being on-brand for Gymshark.

Sources to refine your artistic route expertise

• Artistic Mornings occasions: Artistic Mornings is a world breakfast occasion collection for the artistic group. Be a part of an area occasion or the net group to attach with different curious, artistic leaders in advertising, design and social.
• Vidyo: This easy-to-use AI instrument helps time and resource-strapped groups create social-ready short-form movies from longer content material.
• Illustroke: Use this instrument to create fast AI-generated illustrations from textual content prompts to offer your design groups with extra tangible route.
• Quick Firm and Marketing campaign: These two publications provide considerate commentary and criticism on the artistic advert world. Learn for perception into model and inventive technique, industry-leading campaigns and thought management.
• Sprout Insights Weblog: Try curated articles on content material concepts for a wide range of social platforms on our weblog.

4. Effectivity and mission administration

As a social media supervisor, not solely do you must conceptualize campaigns and distribution rhythms, however you even have to steer and execute these plans from begin to end. Growing social media administration expertise like mission planning and execution lays the inspiration for future management roles within the {industry}.

AI received’t exchange the necessity for mission administration, however it could make your processes extra environment friendly. Take Sprout’s ViralPost® function, for instance. It analyzes viewers engagement patterns and robotically schedules posts in your queue at the very best instances. As a substitute of guessing when to submit, you may give attention to technique and execution whereas letting AI deal with the timing.

Among the many many time and mission administration instruments out there, similar to Asana or Monday.com, a social media calendar is tremendous useful for managing your completely different social duties. Don’t have time to create your personal social media calendar? Social administration platforms like Sprout even have an intuitive social media calendar you need to use to handle your campaigns extra effectively, maintain all of your collaborators on the identical web page, observe your progress with completely different filters and extra.

Sources to enhance your mission administration expertise

• Asana Challenge Management: Use this instrument to plan and handle your tasks from begin to end.
• Pomodoro Approach and time-boxing: Typically you’ve bought 50 posts to write down and schedule unexpectedly. Setting apart a restricted block of time to work on a job helps maintain issues shifting.
• Social Media Marketing campaign Temporary Template: Use this customizable social marketing campaign transient template to prepare marketing campaign particulars, artistic route and different necessary directives.

5. Advertising and marketing technique

Social sits on the intersection of selling, buyer expertise and gross sales. It’s additionally a supply of worthwhile enterprise intelligence.

Even with the integral position of social throughout a corporation, proving social media’s ROI generally is a problem for a lot of social media managers. In response to The 2025 Sprout Social Index,™ social groups typically wrestle to tie their efforts to broader enterprise objectives.

That’s the place advertising expertise are available in. Understanding how social intersects with different ways helps you create social media methods that drive actual enterprise affect and showcase these efforts to advertising leaders. However the success of a method isn’t purely based mostly on execution; it’s additionally about how your viewers responds. Sprout’s Listening instruments assist you to gauge viewers notion by analyzing social conversations so you may regulate your messaging, optimize campaigns and guarantee your technique resonates.

When mixed with social intelligence, robust advertising expertise permit you to form conversations, proving the true worth of social to your group.

Extra sources

6. Agility

The social panorama strikes quick, and even the best-laid plans can grow to be irrelevant in a single day. That’s why understanding when to pivot, experiment or double down is one among many must-have social media marketer expertise.

Being agile isn’t nearly reacting to tendencies or dealing with buyer suggestions in actual time. It additionally means understanding when to regulate your long-term social media technique.

Social methods need to be as dynamic because the platforms they’re executed on. As a social media supervisor, it’s necessary to experiment with completely different ways and even shake up your technique fully to adapt to new tendencies or aggressive forces.

Studying out of your information by listening to buyer suggestions and protecting a pulse in your opponents in a well timed method makes you a extra nimble and hands-on social marketer.

Sources that will help you keep agile

7. Social media intelligence

In our 2023 State of Social Media report, 90% of enterprise leaders agreed that their firm’s success relied on how successfully they used social media information. This stat reveals the worth of social media intelligence as a ability for social media managers.

What’s social media intelligence? In brief, it’s the power to research uncooked information and spot patterns and insights. AI-powered instruments like Sprout’s Analyze by AI Help, take this ability to the following degree by monitoring important metrics, hashtags, key phrases, emojis and classes collected by means of social media listening and figuring out tendencies and sentiment shifts in social conversations. Whereas this solely helps you together with your listening information, it nonetheless saves you a while sifting by means of information so you’ve extra time to give attention to refining your technique.

The story of Spotify Wrapped is a primary instance of what’s doable while you use social media intelligence to drive technique. Spotify’s information confirmed that customers had been organically sharing their listening habits on the finish of every yr. The model turned this perception into a personalised, sharable expertise that’s now its most recognizable advertising initiative. By analyzing viewers conversations, engagement patterns and sentiment, Spotify remodeled uncooked social information into advertising gold.

This capability to translate information into compelling narratives isn’t only for international manufacturers—it’s a ability each social media supervisor wants.

To correctly talk the affect of social intelligence to management, you must inform the tales behind the numbers. For instance, as an alternative of simply presenting the chances, you may clarify that engagement dropped 10% in Q1, however you elevated attain by 30% in Q2 by experimenting with posting instances.

Right here’s tips on how to use information storytelling to carry your social intelligence takeaways to life:

• Tie insights to income: Present how engagement, visitors or social sentiment interprets into conversions, retention or value financial savings. Lead with the metrics management cares about most.
• Visualize key tendencies: The 2025 Sprout Social Index™ discovered that 45% of selling leaders agree visible information—just like the dashboards and reviews you may entry by means of Sprout Social’s My Experiences function—helps safe social media funding.

Sources for constructing your social intelligence expertise

• Social Listening Workbook: This workbook helps you get clear insights into what audiences take into consideration your model and work out tips on how to optimize your technique accordingly.
• Marketer’s Final Information-Powered Toolkit: This highly effective toolkit is filled with recommendation on tips on how to use analytics to your benefit from {industry} leaders together with HubSpot, Litmus, Unbounce, Vidyard and ZoomInfo.
• Information storytelling: This text reveals you tips on how to construct efficient information storytelling so you may talk your data-driven technique in a approach that resonates with members in and across the advertising staff.

8. Funds administration

As a social media supervisor, you must expertly plan and handle funds for numerous applications, together with natural and paid media spending.

This contains managing the funds for content material, particularly in case your mission contains influencer advertising or if it’s essential to rent freelance professionals. These prices might differ based mostly on the place you’re positioned, the scale of the influencer’s following and the way freelance writers or editors cost their charges. You’ll have to resolve which creator partnerships to prioritize based mostly on out there sources and manufacturing prices.

To plan and allocate your spending properly, it’s essential to first completely perceive the objectives of the mission and conduct a social spend audit to match the bills from earlier months or quarters. This gives you a greater thought of which bills are a one-time spend and that are ongoing. Sprout’s automated link-tracking function also can assist maximize your funds by robotically including hyperlink monitoring to hyperlinks posted in Sprout. This ensures you may precisely measure the ROI of your campaigns and make data-driven selections about the place to speculate your funds.

Sources to counterpoint your social media expertise for budgeting

9. Buyer care

Buyer care is a kind of social media expertise that mixes customer support, folks expertise and a mind for uncovering alternatives. That’s why growing a social buyer care technique is an integral a part of a social media supervisor’s job description. Our Index reveals that 73% of social customers will merely purchase from a competitor if a model doesn’t reply on social.

Your social media response time must be dialed in. Almost three-quarters (73%) of shoppers anticipate a response inside 24 hours or sooner, which is according to what our Index reported in 2022 and 2023. Not solely do you must take heed to and perceive your prospects’ issues, however you additionally have to be proactive in dealing with emergencies. For instance, when a buyer reached out to United Airways inquiring when their web site can be practical once more, the airline responded instantly with an answer and follow-up query.

As a social media supervisor, you’re the model’s largest champion. Understanding prospects and their views permits you to create significant interactions that strengthen group belief. In order for you assist streamlining this, Sprout’s Sentiment for Messages robotically detects the tone of incoming messages, so you may prioritize pressing issues and reply appropriately.

Personalizing interactions additionally makes a distinction. Whenever you reference dialog historical past, you flip on a regular basis exchanges into relationship-building alternatives. Summarize by AI Help simplifies this by summarizing previous interactions, so that you don’t need to dig by means of threads to know the context.

Sources to reinforce your buyer care expertise

• Buyer Service Coaching Information: Construct important buyer care expertise with this free information from Salesforce. It covers all the pieces from communication strategies to AI-driven service methods.
• Podcasts: Buyer care begins with buyer understanding. A few of our favourite podcasts on this subject embody Hidden Mind, Invisibilia and What It Means. Try our full checklist of favourite podcasts right here.

10. Model voice improvement

Your model voice is greater than what you say—it’s the way you say it. A powerful, constant model voice has to mirror your model’s values and character whereas additionally serving to you stand out, construct belief and create an enduring emotional connection together with your viewers. It’s a tall order.

For inspiration, contemplate Oatly, a model recognized for its irreverent tone and daring and witty voice. The copy feels prefer it’s coming from a intelligent individual moderately than a model. It typically makes self-aware references to the truth that it’s for advertising functions, but it surely does it in a approach that makes the viewers really feel like they’re in on the joke.

A part of crafting an superior model voice is ensuring it resonates. In case your viewers reacts unexpectedly to a marketing campaign or if sentiment shifts in a single day, it’s essential to know. That is the place social listening is available in. Spike Alerts assist you to keep forward of the dialog by flagging sudden modifications in engagement and sentiment, so you may regulate your messaging.

Somebody at Oatly should’ve learn our 2025 Index and seen that 93% of shoppers wish to see extra manufacturers combatting misinformation (or they noticed the identical development we did…this appears extra probably). Both approach, Oatly is proof {that a} well-crafted model voice works.

Sources that will help you study model voice

• Model voice: This text has ideas that will help you develop your model’s voice.
• Grammarly’s Tone Detector: A free instrument to assist lock in model voice consistency by guaranteeing your writing matches your meant model voice.

11. Influencer advertising

When carried out proper, influencer advertising builds credibility, will increase engagement and drives long-term model development—however provided that it feels genuine and strategic. Managing influencer relationships, monitoring efficiency and guaranteeing content material stays on-brand may be complicated. An Influencer Advertising and marketing marketing campaign administration instrument, like Sprout’s, streamlines the method by serving to you discover the proper companions, coordinate collaborations and measure affect.

Have a look at Pvolve’s collaboration with Jennifer Aniston—it’s a masterclass in influencer advertising carried out proper. Aniston organically found the model whereas recovering from a again damage, making her endorsement really feel real and aligned with Pvolve’s message: “Break a sweat, not your physique.”

Later, Pvolve strategically elevated her position from person to collaborator, turning an genuine model connection into a robust advertising asset. By leveraging her affect, the model skyrocketed its social media consciousness and positioned itself as a pacesetter in low-impact health. This instance illustrates why influencer advertising is a crucial ability. You threat being left behind in the event you’re not together with it in your technique.

In our Q1 2025 Pulse Survey, 92% of entrepreneurs stated that sponsored influencer content material outperforms natural content material posted on their model accounts for attain. That quantity dips to 82% for B2C entrepreneurs, however nonetheless, the optimistic affect is confirmed.

Sources to strengthen your influencer advertising expertise

4 social media advertising expertise for advertising leaders to construct higher groups

Regardless that they oversee the broader advertising technique, advertising leaders nonetheless want particular social media expertise. Why? It’s arduous to champion one thing in the event you don’t perceive it, and social groups have to be constructed by somebody who will get it. Because the hyperlink between management and the social media staff, advertising leaders want to have the ability to talk the worth of social media and shut data gaps.

Let’s evaluate the social media expertise entrepreneurs have to construct profitable groups and belief with management.

1. Understanding social media tradition

Social media has its personal tradition, with its personal language, behaviors and expectations. If the aim is to be the most important model in your {industry} on social media, it’s essential to perceive social media tradition, and your staff must be fluent in it. Per the Index, 93% of shoppers agreed it’s necessary for manufacturers to maintain up with on-line tradition.

From a method perspective, understanding social media tradition minimizes the danger of showing out of contact. Nevertheless, you even have to know your viewers, particularly contemplating completely different generations use social media in another way. Hear and take cues out of your viewers to create content material that resonates. AI-powered social media listening instruments like Sprout’s assist your staff do that.

Gritty is an ideal instance of what occurs when manufacturers really perceive social media tradition. When the Philadelphia Flyers launched their offbeat, googly-eyed mascot, the web initially rejected him. However as an alternative of resisting the memes, the Flyers embraced them, letting Gritty’s chaotic power shine. Gritty proves that when manufacturers cease forcing relatability and begin talking the web’s language, they’ll construct lasting model affinity.

When hiring and main your social media staff, the extra you perceive on-line tradition, the higher you’ll be capable of spot expertise that will get it. It’ll additionally make explaining the worth of social media simpler.

Suggestions that will help you grasp this ability

• Use social media day by day. Comply with manufacturers, meme accounts, creators and trendsetters. Have a look at feedback on in style posts to determine how individuals are reacting and why they’re performing nicely.
• Ask your social staff to stroll you thru how they flip social listening insights into content material concepts. Understanding this course of will permit you to clearly talk how selections are made to management, constructing belief within the social staff’s technique.
• Use TikTok, YouTube and Instagram’s search features. Social media search is changing Google for youthful audiences. Search a subject and see what forms of content material floor first—this provides you a glimpse into what’s trending.

2. Facilitating quicker approvals

When a development takes maintain, a model solely has a day or two to reply. Sadly, many alternatives are missed due to prolonged approval processes.

74% of executives surveyed for The 2025 Sprout Social Index™ say they belief their social staff, however social entrepreneurs nonetheless report fighting useful resource gaps and sluggish approvals.

As a advertising chief, it’s essential to create the circumstances in your social staff to do their greatest work, and on this case, it means doing all your due diligence whereas nonetheless clearing the way in which for creativity.

Suggestions that will help you grasp this ability

• Revisit your social media approval course of. When was the final time you optimized your social media approval course of?
• Think about using a social media administration instrument. Utilizing a platform like Sprout helps handle workflows and pace up decision-making.
• Scale back extra oversight. Are there folks concerned within the approval course of who don’t have to be? Your social staff has a method, they usually want your assist constructing government belief and eradicating bottlenecks in order that they’ll implement it to its fullest potential.

3. Supporting unique content material creation

The 2025 Sprout Social Index™ discovered that originality is the second-leading cause shoppers comply with manufacturers on social media, simply behind product high quality. Producing unique content material is important in your model to be memorable.

When you’re questioning what sort of unique content material to supply, we surveyed our ICYMI group of entrepreneurs and creators about the way forward for social media for 2025, and 47% (essentially the most of any subject) stated they had been specializing in short-form video (60 seconds or much less).

Suggestions that will help you grasp this ability

• Embrace lo-fi video content material. Manufacturing worth and product-centricity are much less necessary to shoppers in response to our Index, so reap the benefits of this by encouraging your staff to supply extra lo-fi video content material.
• Give the social staff extra freedom to experiment with new forms of social media content material. Allow them to experiment with new codecs—interactive polls, behind-the-scenes footage or audience-driven content material—to find what really engages your group.

4. Constructing a definite model voice

A compelling model voice does wonders to cease the scroll and make your model recognizable past the visuals.

In order for you proof that crafting a definite model voice is price it, take a look at Duolingo’s social media story. In 2021, Zaria Parvez requested if she may revive the model’s inactive TikTok account. She was a junior advertising staff member on the time.

She didn’t have a lot of a funds, so she bought artistic, took dangers, hopped on tendencies and gave the model an unhinged and hilarious voice on social media. Duolingo has grown from 50 thousand followers on TikTok to over 15 million because of its quirky model voice.

Suggestions and sources that will help you grasp this ability

• Work with the social staff to supply a social media model information. This can assist your social staff outline precisely how your model seems on social media, together with tone and voice.
• Put together to deal with questions and issues. Experimenting with a daring model voice typically will create some apprehension, however it will likely be price it while you strike gold and create superfans. Belief your social staff to adapt messaging based mostly on viewers engagement.
• Keep away from model voices which can be sexually express or overly company. In response to our Index, shoppers are bored with these model voices.

Construct your social media expertise to remodel your profession

Social is a profession path of lifelong studying. Whether or not you’re moving into your first social media supervisor position otherwise you’re already a professional, it’s essential to proceed to hone your social media expertise and evolve them alongside AI. Meaning taking part in to your strengths whereas pushing your self to develop in new areas.

For instance, in the event you’re already extremely organized and environment friendly, you may spend time growing different expertise, similar to constructing your private model or getting ready to maneuver into folks administration.

Specializing in a selected social media ability shall be key to your subsequent profession transfer. When you’re phenomenal at information evaluation, maybe you grow to be an distinctive information storyteller. Or, if content material creation is your forte, you may wish to upskill at video content material creation. No matter your social media expertise are, there’s room to develop.

Try The 2025 Sprout Social Index™ to learn to stand out regardless of social media saturation and construct next-generation social groups.