Eric Mills, Founder & President - National Institute for Social Media; presented The six essential skills of professional social media practitioners at the Social Media Masters Forum 2012 in Bahrain. www.socialmediamasters.me

1. The Six Essential Skills
of Professional Social
Media Practitioners

2. Industry Advisors
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

3. The Process
#1 - IDENTIFY COMMON TASKS & DUTIES
Examples:
o Create a social media strategic plan is aligned with company goals
o Create a social media policy to govern activities
o Determine how your core audience prefers to interact online
o Gather data from tools for performance metrics
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

4. The Process
#2 - NATIONAL SOCIAL MEDIA JOB SURVEY
Results:
o Education and experience demographic data
o Frequency of performance for identified tasks and duties
o Overall importance of identified tasks and duties
o Six essential content domains (skill-sets)
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

5. Survey Results
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

6. Survey Results
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

7. Six Essential Skills
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Understanding broad strategies and visions for the
organization, and then drilling down to specific tactics and tools.
Strategic planning is where the foundation is set for social media.
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

8. Six Essential Skills
COMPLIANCE AND GOVERNANCE
Before executing a project and incurring further costs, developing
policies and determining legal limitations is critical. Growth can
quickly be stifled by legal obstacles, particularly when businesses
use external social platforms.
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

9. Six Essential Skills
PROJECT / CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT
The coordination of many different people, the completion of many
tasks in a precise sequence, and acquiring or outsourcing to key
talents to implement the vision, plan or campaign are all core to the
skills in social media project management.
The Strategic Principles of Social Media

10. Six Essential Skills
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Priming the marketplace, gauging audience interest, sharing stories
and preparing for campaigns and/or sharing your campaign
announcements via internet-driven technology such as blogs, RSS,
web video productions, podcasts and social networking platforms
are essential to social media marketing.
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

11. Six Essential Skills
COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
Ensuring that the two-way online communication between the
organization and its customers / stakeholders always flows
smoothly, the community manager serves as a professional
representative for the organization’s products or services, while
simultaneously gathering feedback for further development of
products or services for evaluation.
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

12. Six Essential Skills
RESEARCH AND ANALYTICS
Research and analysis should take place within each of the
previous skill domains. However, the greatest value can be found
when real-time feedback and monitoring solutions have been
implemented, making trends and behaviors more concrete.
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners

13. Six Essential Skills
o Strategic Planning
o Compliance and Governance
o Project and Campaign Management
o Social Media Marketing
o Community Management
o Research and Analytics
The Six Essential Skills of Social Media
Practitioners