The internet is the most important frontier for business right now, which makes the world of social media detrimental to companies and other hopeful money-makers. With online advertising revenues steadily rising in recent years, and many people—including, evidently, political heavy-hitters—getting much of their news and daily information from social media, the job of social media coordinator is a big one right now.

A social media coordinator develops original content for the company they work for—whether that’s full-time or as a freelancer—and suggests creative ways to attract customers. It is the job of a social media coordinator to promote the brand of the company they are representing, increase web traffic and customer engagement, and gear their online presence to parallel that of their organization’s marketing strategies

Education

If you are in school and are considering this career, a Bachelor’s degree related to advertising, writing, marketing or promotions is always a plus. Some people who are doing degrees in business also go into social media once in the work force, as that often helps them understand how to attract customers. When businesses are looking to hire social media coordinators, they look for experience. A lot of applicants that are successful have successful personal online followings. This means that they have a successful blog with high ad revenue, or thousands of Twitter or Instagram followers. Employers want to see that you know how to market yourself and the content. In the end, the real necessary education is hands-on social media experience. Companies hiring will of course look for your experience with online marketing campaigns for previous companies.  So, get tweeting, and make those tweets count.

Duties

A social media coordinator develops relevant content topics. They do so in order to reach the company’s target customers, and potential different types of customers. They always have to be thinking about the future: how do you keep your following growing as technology and platforms change? This is actually one of the most important aspects of the job. The internet and platform technology is ALWAYS changing. What might be a great tool for your business right now—like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram etc.—may be obsolete in the future. Social media coordinators need to be skilled at evolving with the times and the changing technology with ease. They also curate, create and manage published content like written work (features, tweets, blurbs, listicle articles etc.), images, audio and video. Oftentimes social media coordinators have all this content on timers, planning their social media schedule ahead of time. They know when to publish something (the time of day that features the highest traffic), what types of hashtags to use, and what platform to go the heaviest on. It’s a packed, no-breather type of job. But you have a pulse on the interests on the internet community, and that’s pretty darn cool.

Salary

The starting rate for inexperienced social media coordinators would be around $25,571, and the median salary would be $35,686 in Canada. When you have gained a significant amount of experience in the field, you can earn up to $46,661 or more, depending on company or independent contracting.