Social Media Skills: Definition and Examples

Updated July 5, 2023

Social media has proven to be one of the most effective marketing tools of recent years, and many organizations are hiring social media specialists to help them maximize their reach and improve engagement with existing and potential customers. If you’re writing your social media skills resume, you want to show a recruiter you meet all the requirements of the role with a well-organized application. Being able to manage a business’s social media presence has become a highly valued skill with the most effective experts in their field combining creativity with an analytical approach that drives results. In this article, we’ll provide tips and examples of how to list social media skills on your resume to increase your chances of success.

What are social media skills?

Social media skills are those that help professionals devise and implement ideas for marketing campaigns to drive business. To succeed, you must have a creative flair and an understanding of what makes content sharable, and you should be demonstrating these qualities with your social media skills list. By listing your skills, you can show your understanding of the current social media field, show your writing skills and describe your achievements in a well-structured way. A strongly written skills section in your resume can show your value to employers and potentially earn you an interview and a job.

Examples of social media skills

Here are some skills you can list on your resume to show your value as an employee working with social media:

Analytical skills
Efficiency
Understanding trends
Communication
Creativity
Time management
Project management
Flexibility

Analytical skills

Although social media provides a large volume of metrics about their users and the way they interact with you, these are most useful if you have the analytical skills to interpret them and draw conclusions based on what you are seeing. Targeted analysis helps you understand consumers’ behavior, allowing you to direct your budget to the areas where your campaigns are having the most impact.An experienced social media manager will do all of this and explain it to colleagues who may not be familiar with social media. Your resume should give examples of how you have used your analytical skills to improve the quality of your social media output and how you can apply these skills in the position you’re interviewing for. Related: Analytical Skills: Definitions and Examples

Efficiency

From tools that allow you to manage all your social media accounts in one place, to those which add functionality to the platform’s existing offerings, there many ways to help you make your social media campaigns more efficient. For instance, many apps have add-ons to improve functionality and keep your knowledge up-to-date. Use your resume to let a recruiter know that you understand the importance of keeping your skills current. Constantly assessing the wider social media landscape will help you to do your job most efficiently.

Following trends

Being aware of trends and using them to your advantage is one of the key social management skills, and one which relies on a thorough understanding of the market, the major figures and the formats that work best. Your resume could include details of a campaign you have managed that has tied in with a recent trend, or one that you have started that gained measurable traction among your followers.

Communication

Communication for social media professionals usually comes in two forms:

Online

The social landscape means that it is more important than ever for social media professionals to have detailed brand guidelines about tone of voice. If more than one person is responding to customers through social channels, the message needs to be consistent and in-line with the company ethos. A clear strategy that is communicated company-wide can reduce the risks of negative engagement on social media, and an effective social media manager will show how they plan for such occurrences.

Internally

Internal communication is also vitally important. Social media has quickened the speed at which news breaks, so businesses need to be prepared with strategies to make the best use of breaking trends and news items. Communicating with colleagues can help your team respond quickly to a news story or mitigate any negative publicity. An effective social media manager needs to be constantly monitoring the online landscape for relevant trends and have strong relationships with coworkers.Related: Communication Skills: Definitions and Examples

Creativity

While informative content can be a great way to position your business as an authority in your field, creative flair can make your posts more relatable, encourage your followers to share them and increase your reach. Some brands use humor to encourage engagement, while some promote contests or campaigns that encourage users to contribute to a post and others choose controversial topics to foster debate. As a social media professional, show how your brand values guide your output, but also include details of how your creative approach differs from your competitors.

Time management

Your most loyal followers might not be online during office hours, so you will need to use your time wisely to ensure that you maximize engagement whenever it happens. From working out the best time of day to reach your target audience to planning campaigns for the holidays, you will need to be excellent at prioritizing to get the best results.

Project management

Social media managers aren’t just responsible for posting content, they also play a pivotal part in the wider marketing mix. To ensure that your initiative reaches the public, you should work with others to create landing pages, track data and plan budgets to have the most effective strategy.Allocating resources effectively is an important part of running a social media campaign and showing that you can multi-task without compromising on quality can make your social media skills resume stand out. List your accomplishments in a way that ties them directly to the required skills listed on the job description to show the hiring manager that you have what they are looking for.Related: Listing Accomplishments on Your Resume (With Examples)

Flexibility

Social media is a fast-moving industry where you have to adapt your strategies to respond to changes in the online environment with little or no notice. A flexible social media manager will adjust a campaign message to fit in with an active online discussion, capitalize on a viral image or work a breaking news story into a scheduled post. This responsive approach should keep your content fresh and relevant and keep your online community engaged with your brand. Let your potential employers know about your flexible attitude to show an understanding of how important this is in the social media mix.Related: Soft Skills: Definitions and Examples

Social media skills in a resume skills section

These are some skills you could include on your resume:Technical Skills: Social media platforms, social management services, analytics, CMS, graphic designAdditional Skills: Organization, communication, time management, creative, results-driven

Download Resume Template

To upload the template into Google Docs, go to File > Open > and select the correct downloaded file.

See how your salary compares

Get personalized salary insights with the Indeed Salary Calculator

Social media skills in the work experience section

Some of the skills that you should include in the experience section of your resume include:

Winterton’s DinersSocial Media Manager | January 2012 – October 2014• Created a social media presence for the chain, reaching 200,000 followers within the first year• Planned a series of seasonal competitions that increased engagement by 45% and increased footfall by 20%• Worked with the management to develop a long-term plan to maintain and grow their following with a strategic social media content calendar