5 Social Media Skills Critical To Communications Majors
- Updating Frequently
- Understanding Algorithm Changes
- Customer Service Skills
- Producing Engaging Content
- Solid Writing Skills
Modern students in pursuit of a communications degree need to understand the workings of social media to be successful in their careers. Social media is one of the most important ways humans communicate with one another in the 21st century, and all people, organizations and businesses use it to some extent. Below are some key social media skills communications majors need to master.
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1. Updating Frequently
Social media accounts remain relevant by updating frequently. If long breaks go between updates, customers or followers will lose interest and engagement will lessen. This can lead to serious loss of revenue and a general loss of engagement. Professionals with a communications degree should understand the ideal posting frequency on each major social media platform on which they work to optimally retain follower engagement.
2. Understanding Algorithm Changes
Social media sites often change and update how they process content. To make matters more complicated, these algorithms are often secret and require trial and error to figure out. However, communications majors need to fully understand these algorithms in order to do their jobs properly. Not paying attention to algorithms can result in content getting buried and not seen by the audience who was supposed to be viewing it.
3. Customer Service Skills
Any business or entity with a social media page will be interacting with customers on that page. Because of this, communications professionals must have a strong grasp of what makes good customer service. They may be in charge of directing social media customer support staff or directly responding to messages and comments themselves. Good customer service on social media requires responding to messages and comments from followers and doing so in a timely fashion. Social media consumers are used to quick responses and communications professionals should strive to meet that demand.
4. Producing Engaging Content
Content marketing is truly how a business stands out from its competitors in this digital age. The goal of content marketing is to create engaging, useful content that readers will want to consume. By creating this content, businesses demonstrate their professional knowledge and offer an added value to their customers. Communications majors understand this and work to help companies create this material. Content posted to social media feeds can include text posts, video, images, podcasts and more, per Forbes.
5. Solid Writing Skills
Communications majors typically learn oral and written communication skills while in school. Verbal communication skills and in-person communication skills are important for communications professionals, but writing skills are the most important when it comes to work on social media platforms. Communications majors need to be able to write clearly and convey their meaning effectively. For social media writing, posts need to be kept short – some platforms, such as Twitter, limit the amount of characters that can be used. Even when there is no limit, posts should still be short and to the point. Long-winded posts will cause readers to lose interest.
Modern communications majors will undoubtedly be working with social media at some point in their careers. Individuals pursuing a communications degree should prioritize learning these key social media skills to achieve career success.