WHAT DOES A DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA DO?

Published: Dec 20, 2024 – The Director of Social Media develops and executes integrated social media strategies across all platforms to maximize engagement, reach, user acquisition, and growth while achieving brand objectives and revenue targets. This position manages and collaborates with cross-functional teams to optimize digital campaigns, implement innovative content strategies, and ensure alignment with segment-specific goals and marketing initiatives. The director analyzes competitors, measures campaign performance, and provides actionable insights to continuously refine social media strategies and improve ROI.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Director of Social Media

1. Director of Social Media Job Summary

  • Social Media Strategy: Designing and continuously evolving a social media strategy that grows authentic brand affinity, engagement, reach, audience, and as a result, conversion.
  • Social Strategy Execution: Managing the social strategy execution for campaigns, content, and projects.
  • Team Collaboration: Working closely with the marketing and communications teams, ensuring social is thoughtfully factored into partnerships and campaigns.
  • Campaign Performance Measurement: Measuring results and reporting on social campaign performance.
  • Data Analysis: Leading the analysis of qualitative and quantitative social data.
  • Tool Implementation: Identifying and implementing software tools.
  • Audience Targeting: Reviewing target audience performance and strategizing new targeting tactics.
  • Content Optimization: Recommending tactics to optimize content.
  • Posting Cadence: Developing guidelines around posting cadence.
  • Team Management: Managing a team of four to six direct reports who execute daily posting, manage a content calendar, and engage with all community conversations.
  • Budget Management: Managing the social media team budget and resourcing.
  • Digital Landscape Reporting: Reporting on and reacting to all developments in the digital landscape.
  • Strategic Collaboration: Collaborating closely with other business peers to participate in, and actively contribute to, organizational strategic planning and major initiatives.

2. Director of Social Media Accountabilities

  • Content Ownership: Ownership of all content creation, social strategy, influencer engagement, and social footprint.
  • Strategic Partnership: Serve as a strategic business partner and marketing leader to plan, develop, and prepare effective, thoughtful, and engaging content campaigns.
  • Data-Driven Decision Making: Help inform marketing decisions and have the data to back it up.
  • Content Planning and Execution: Plan, develop, and execute new content ideas for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc.
  • Content Calendar Management: Own the content calendar and ensure it aligns with and supports overall client and company goals.
  • Influencer Collaboration: Manage influencer collaborations, contracts, and campaigns from start to finish.
  • Brand Consistency: Ensure brand consistency and strategic alignment across all platforms and outlets.
  • Content Performance Monitoring: Test, monitor, and track for the best-performing and most impactful content across all social media platforms and outlets.
  • Client Reporting: Be willing to share/present analysis and findings with the clients to ensure further consistency and efficacy of content.
  • Campaign Ideation: Generate ideas for campaigns, launches, giveaways, and partnerships on social media in collaboration with the team.
  • Team Leadership: Lead and develop a talented and global team of content creators.

3. Director of Social Media Functions

  • Social Media Service Development: Develop and refine the company's social media service offering, including developing all aspects of the practice including staffing, processes and methodologies, partnerships, and a standardized toolset.
  • Social Media Accountability: Accountability for social listening, channel management, social strategy development, and social content best practices.
  • Content Activation Strategy: Define and refine the full set of company content activation offerings, centered on content syndication, distribution, paid placements, native advertising, paid social, and SEM.
  • Partnership Development: Identify and develop suitable partnerships with 3rd-party tools, platforms, partners, and media networks to deepen the company’s capabilities and client offering.
  • Strategy Implementation: Develop and implement social media and content activation strategies based on the client’s business goals, objectives, and audience needs.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work in close consultation with account leads, and key peers in digital/content strategy, analytics, and creative roles.
  • Business Development: Identify, pitch, and win new business opportunities on existing client accounts and with new prospects.
  • Team Leadership and Mentorship: Hire, develop, mentor, and lead specialists across multiple disciplines in pursuit of both specific client opportunities and as part of the overall development of the practice.
  • Industry Visibility: Contribute to the development of the industry presence and visibility of the company through thought leadership posts, whitepapers, internal training, and best practice development.
  • Client Representation: Represent the company in client-facing meetings as a key expert voice.

4. Director of Social Media Job Description

  • Media Framework Oversight: Oversee the media framework developed by the team, ensuring consistency across all elements of creative and media plan development and implementation.
  • Paid Media Strategy: Supervise the development of paid social media plans, in both strategy and buying best practices.
  • Tactical Execution Management: Ensure the accuracy of tactical execution of all social media buys to maximize the client’s business goals.
  • Team Accountability: Hold team accountable to deliverable deadlines, coordinating between internal and external teams.
  • Quality Control: Quality control teams’ accuracy and timeliness of tactical efforts to ensure efficiency and performance.
  • Financial and Forecasting Partnership: Partner with the VP on team finances and forecasting.
  • Team Leadership: Oversee junior team, guiding team in setting goals and project tasks and timelines, ensuring they have challenging, level-appropriate projects and opportunities to learn new skills.
  • Performance Management: Manage performance reviews, coaching to maximize success, identifying training needs for improved performance, setting goals for career development, and ensuring actions are taken.
  • Social Media Education: Provide education and training within the social landscape, focused on emerging opportunities and best practices.
  • Recruitment Involvement: Participate in the interview process for junior team members.
  • Cross-Team Collaboration: Partner with Digital and Business Solutions teams daily to drive integration based on client’s business needs and outcomes.
  • Channel Synergy: Collaborate with various internal teams (e.g. Analytics, SEM, Programmatic) to create synergies across channels, ensuring a holistic media approach.
  • Client Relationship Support: Support client relationships with key stakeholders by serving as lead agency social contact for strategic components of projects.
  • Platform Partnership Management: Drive relationships with third-party platform partners (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat). 

5. Director of Social Media Overview

  • Integrated Marketing Strategy: Collaborates to create integrated marketing communications strategies between social media and other digital and analog channels.
  • Stakeholder Collaboration: Works closely with senior executives, volunteers, business units, influencers, and affiliates to evangelize new concepts.
  • Social Media Optimization: Plans and directs the implementation of marketing strategies and campaigns through social media optimization.
  • Product/Service Promotion: Promotes and communicates information about the organization's products/services.
  • Messaging Consistency: Ensures messaging is consistent across all platforms.
  • Social Media Trends: Keeps abreast of evolving social media platforms and industry specifics.
  • Reputation Management: Escalates feedback and issues that could potentially damage the company's reputation or image and provides mitigating options based on experience and insight into social media best practices.
  • Market Research and Metrics: Conducts market research to identify the most interesting social media sites and promotional tactics to target customers and recommends the critical metrics to meet business unit goals.
  • Social Media Promotions: Develops and implements social media promotions, contests, informational/entertaining content, etc. to encourage potential customers to join product/brand social networks and share content with others.
  • Cross-Team Relationship Building: Develops and maintains strong working relationships with other AHA/ASA business teams.
  • Subject Matter Expertise: Serves as subject matter expert for the Association, integrating as appropriate to help execute social media and digital advertising deliverables.
  • Team Leadership: Leads a team of social media curation, engagement, advertising, reporting, and creative development individual contributors.
  • Brand Compliance: Ensures brand voice, best practice, and legal compliance, as well as execution excellence across all Association social media handles.

6. Director of Social Media Additional Details

  • Media Planning and Activation: Lead the development of media planning and activation across an array of communication types, campaigns, business objectives, and shopper segments.
  • Strategic Optimization: Create new strategic thinking across the board, and optimize performance across all social media activations.
  • Omnichannel Strategy: Partner with cross-functional departments to drive an omnichannel social strategy that engages customers at every touch point, media, merchandising, analytics, etc.
  • Social Platform Evaluation: Lead evaluation of social media platforms to partner with (aligning with Marketing strategy and Business objectives).
  • Social Media Performance Monitoring: Partner with the analytics teams in monitoring and reporting on social media performance.
  • Performance Analysis: Analyze performance to develop reports, actioning key findings and strategic optimizations.
  • Digital Trends: Stay current in social media and digital marketing trends, continue to educate wider teams on innovations, and maintain digital leadership within the industry.
  • Publishing and Engagement Best Practices: Create and enforce social publishing and engagement best practices for the team (aligning with global strategy and business roadmap).
  • Team Leadership: Lead and develop a team of best-in-class Social Media strategists.
  • Revenue and Growth Accountability: Responsible for achieving revenue, traffic, and growth targets for campaigns and launches.
  • Campaign Revenue Reporting: Report out launch and campaign revenue weekly and adjust marketing and spending plans accordingly to achieve revenue targets monthly.
  • Integrated Marketing Reporting: Monitor and report integrated marketing results including revenue, traffic, and growth, and provide actionable insights and recommendations.
  • Campaign Performance Analysis: Analyze and report on campaign results, including revenue, traffic, CPA, conversion rates, and other KPIs, and provide actionable insights and recommendations.

7. Director of Social Media Role Purpose

  • Social Media Strategy: Create, own, and implement the integrated social media across all digital platforms to maximize engagement, reach, new user acquisition, and growth to support brand objectives.
  • Brand and Social Integration: Integrate brand and social strategies to maximize and leverage revenue and growth potential and ensure diversification through segment and platform-specific strategies.
  • Performance Marketing Collaboration: Partner with Performance Marketing to run integrated digital experiments and drive continuous testing and iteration to improve the efficiency and ROI of all social campaigns, identify white space, and evolve the social media strategy.
  • Competitive Benchmarking: Benchmark competitors to understand how brand marketing is evolving and provide actionable insights and recommendations.
  • Brand Vision Implementation: Work directly with the Founder and President to translate and implement the brand vision and strategy across all social media platforms to achieve revenue and growth targets.
  • Team and Strategy Management: Directly oversee and manage all aspects of the social media marketing teams and strategy including all social media platforms and social media advertising to align with and achieve brand-level goals and initiatives.
  • Integration and Optimization: Work directly with each team to identify, optimize, implement, and leverage integration opportunities and measure impacts to ensure segment-specific goals, targets, and objectives are achieved monthly.
  • Process Implementation: Create and implement processes across all marketing departments to ensure information and content are deployed in a strategic and integrated way to achieve campaign and brand objectives.
  • Digital Content Integration: Integrate digital content to support the strategic and campaign objectives to ensure effective storytelling, application of strategic vision, and achieve brand and campaign objectives including revenue and ROI targets.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with and help to integrate Product Marketing, Marketing Operations, Graphic Design, Content Development, and E-commerce teams to ensure clear, consistent, and sequenced communication.
  • Marketing Calendar Management: Create, implement, and monitor a day-integrated marketing calendar for all social platforms.
  • Customer Acquisition and Retention: Develop and execute integrated customer acquisition and retention marketing campaigns, and monitor and report on effectiveness to ensure ROI across all social channels.
  • Marketing Performance: Work effectively within the marketing department and with adjacent stakeholders to drive overall marketing performance and results.
  • Content Innovation: Proactively scout and test new social content to bring onto the platform to expand audiences and reach.
Relevant Information
What Does A Channel Marketing Manager Do?
What Does A Community and Social Media Manager Do?
What Does A Digital Marketing Manager Do?
What Does A Digital Media Manager Do?