What does a social media manager do?
A social media manager is the brand's voice and hands on social. They plan the content calendar, write and commission posts, brief designers and video editors, publish and schedule, reply to comments and messages, work with creators and partners, run paid boosts and campaigns, watch the numbers and report on them. They also keep up with each platform's changing formats and moods, and they are usually the first to know when something is going wrong in the comments.
The scope depends on the brand. At a small company the manager does everything, from shooting the video on a phone to answering customer service questions. At a large brand or an agency they lead a team of content creators, community managers and analysts and spend more time on strategy, approvals and stakeholders. Either way the daily rhythm is relentless, because the platforms never close.
Why it matters
Why a social media manager matters
Social is where most people meet a brand most often, and the manager decides what that meeting feels like. A brand with a good one sounds like a person: consistent, quick, funny when it should be, serious when it must be. A brand without one sounds like a press office, posting on schedule and replying to nobody. Social also moves fast enough that the manager is the brand's early warning system, seeing a complaint, a trend or a competitor's move hours before anyone else does.
In practice
How a social media manager works in practice
- 01
The manager works from a strategy: what the brand is on social for, which platforms, which content pillars and what success looks like. From that they build the calendar, a mix of planned content, campaign moments and room for the reactive post that only works today. Each piece is briefed, made, reviewed and scheduled, with a flow of approvals that is fast enough not to kill the timing.
- 02
Every day they publish, engage and monitor. Every week they look at what worked and adjust the mix. Around a launch they coordinate with the campaign team on assets cut for each platform, the paid support, the creators and the moderation plan. Every month they report what social did for the brand, not just what it did on the platform.
At RIOT
Social media managers at RIOT
We make the content social managers wish they had been sent. For the Washington Commanders we made Scary Season social work for a fanbase that reads every frame. For Gantri we produced two months of social product films, a run that only works with a plan behind it. The Mirror Mix launch film we made for e.l.f. reached about five million views, which is what happens when a film is made for the place it will be watched.
Watch out
What people get wrong about social media managers
Hiring a junior because they "know TikTok". The job is brand voice, judgment under pressure, stakeholder management and content production, and the person doing it is speaking for the company in public every day. The other mistake is measuring them on posting volume. A manager who posts less and gets more response is doing the job; one who fills the calendar to hit a number is training the audience to ignore the brand.
