What skills are needed for a social media marketer?

Core skills include copywriting, visual content creation, data analysis, platform expertise (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube), paid advertising management, community engagement, strategic planning, and project management. Employers value demonstrated results — portfolio evidence of growth or conversions — over formal credentials.

What are examples of social marketing?

Social marketing examples include anti-smoking campaigns like "Truth," water-conservation programs, vaccination drives, and recycling initiatives — all applying commercial marketing techniques to promote behaviors that benefit society. Social media marketing examples include brand campaigns on TikTok, Instagram influencer partnerships, LinkedIn B2B lead generation, and paid Meta ad funnels.

What is a social media marketer?

A social media marketer is a marketing professional who manages a brand's presence on social platforms — creating content, engaging with audiences, running paid ads, and analyzing performance. The role may be in-house, agency-based, or freelance, and ranges from generalist (owning all social activity at a small business) to specialist (focusing on one platform or function at a large company).

How to become a social media marketer?

Start by building hands-on platform experience — grow a personal or hobby account. Take structured courses from Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, or HubSpot Academy. Build a portfolio documenting real results. Apply for entry-level roles like social media coordinator. Network actively on LinkedIn and within marketing communities. No single degree or certificate is required.

Is social media marketing a good career?

The role offers variety, creative and analytical balance, and remote-work flexibility. Downsides include always-on expectations during crises and the challenge of proving ROI in channels with imperfect attribution.

What do social media marketers do?

They create and schedule platform-native content, target and engage audiences, run paid social advertising campaigns, analyze performance metrics, monitor trends, and adapt strategy based on data. The specific mix depends on company size and industry.

Do social media marketers put out paid ads for companies?

Yes, many social media marketers manage paid advertising campaigns on Meta (Facebook/Instagram), TikTok, LinkedIn, and other platforms. This includes budget setting, audience targeting, creative testing, and performance optimization. In larger organizations, paid social may be handled by a separate performance marketing team.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is the use of social platforms — Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others — to connect with audiences, build brand awareness, promote products or services, and drive business goals. It encompasses organic content, paid advertising, influencer partnerships, and community management.

Why is social media marketing important for businesses?

It provides direct access to audiences where they spend significant time, enables two-way communication with customers, supports brand building and reputation management, and drives measurable outcomes including website traffic, leads, and sales. For many small businesses, social media is the most cost-effective marketing channel available.

Which social media platforms are best for marketing?

It depends on the audience and goal. Instagram and TikTok lead for consumer brands and short-form video. LinkedIn dominates B2B marketing and professional audiences. Facebook remains strong for community building and local business marketing. YouTube is essential for long-form video and search-driven discovery. The best platform is the one where your target audience already spends time.

What does a social media marketer do?

A social media marketer handles content creation, audience engagement, paid advertising, analytics, and trend adaptation for a brand's social media channels. The role balances creative work (writing, design, video) with analytical work (metrics, reporting, optimization).

Why invest in social media marketing?

Because audiences are there — over 300 million people in the United States use social media regularly. It's the only channel where brands can have direct, public conversations with customers at scale. It supports every stage of the marketing funnel, from awareness through retention. And unlike paid search, which stops delivering the moment you stop paying, organic social builds compounding brand equity over time.

What is a digital marketer?

A digital marketer is a professional who uses online channels — search engines, email, social media, display advertising, content marketing, and websites — to reach and convert customers. The role is broader than a social media marketer, encompassing SEO, paid search (Google Ads), email automation, and analytics across all digital touchpoints.

When to hire a digital marketer?

Hire a digital marketer when you need multi-channel strategy and execution — someone who can manage SEO, paid search, email marketing, and possibly social media under one role. This is common in smaller organizations where one person must cover the full digital footprint.

When to hire a social media marketer?

Hire a social media marketer when social platforms are your primary or most promising growth channel, when your social presence needs dedicated creative and community attention, or when you're investing significantly in influencer and creator partnerships. If social media is an afterthought in your marketing mix, a broader digital marketer may be more practical first.

Should I hire a digital marketer and a social media marketer?

It depends on scale. Organizations with significant social media investment and multi-channel digital needs benefit from both — a digital marketing manager overseeing strategy across channels, with a social media marketer executing the social component. Smaller businesses often start with one generalist digital marketer and add a social specialist as social media becomes a larger share of revenue.

Social Marketer

A social marketer is a professional who applies marketing principles to either (1) influence human behavior for the benefit of individuals and society — known as social marketing — or (2) build brand presence, create content, and drive engagement on social media platforms — known as social media marketing.

SocialMarketing AffiliateMarketing BehaviorChange MarketingMix

A social marketer is a professional who applies marketing principles to either (1) influence human behavior for the benefit of individuals and society — known as social marketing — or (2) build brand presence, create content, and drive engagement on social media platforms — known as social media marketing. The term carries two distinct meanings depending on the industry context, and understanding both is essential for anyone researching the field.

On this page

What Is a Social Marketer?
Social Media Manager vs. Social Media Marketer: What’s the Difference?
What Does a Social Media Marketer Do?
What Skills Are Needed for a Social Media Marketer?
How to Become a Social Media Marketer
How Much Do Social Media Marketers Make?
Is Social Media Marketing a Good Career?
Relevance to Affiliate Marketing
When to Hire a Social Media Marketer vs. a Digital Marketer
Examples of Social Marketing
Limitations and Obsolete Practices

The phrase “social marketer” predates social media. It originated in the 1970s when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman recognized that the same marketing principles used to sell commercial products could be applied to “sell” ideas, attitudes, and behaviors that benefit society. This discipline — social marketing — remains active today in public health, non-profits, and government agencies.

In parallel, the rise of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn created a second meaning: a social marketer as someone who manages a brand’s presence on social media. In everyday business conversation, “social marketer” almost always refers to this digital role. The distinction matters because the skills, goals, and audiences differ significantly.

A social marketer in the traditional sense designs campaigns that encourage people to adopt positive behaviors or abandon harmful ones. The goal is not profit but social good. Examples include anti-smoking initiatives, water-conservation programs, seatbelt-usage campaigns, and vaccination drives.

Element	Application in Social Marketing
Product	The desired behavior (e.g., getting a mammogram, recycling)
Price	Barriers — monetary cost, time, effort, embarrassment, or discomfort
Place	Where and when the audience can act — clinics, mobile vans, social media, grocery stores
Promotion	Advertising, public relations, media advocacy, text messaging, community events
Publics	Target audience, secondary audiences, policymakers, gatekeepers, internal staff
Partnership	Collaborating organizations with shared goals or overlapping audiences
Policy	Environmental and regulatory changes that sustain individual behavior change
Purse Strings	Funding sources — government grants, foundations, donations

A social marketer working in public health for a state department, for example, might run a campaign to increase colorectal cancer screening rates among adults over 45. They would research audience barriers, design messaging, partner with local clinics, and measure screening-rate changes — not sales.

In the digital and corporate context, a social marketer — more precisely called a social media marketer — is a marketing professional who handles a brand’s presence across online social networks. Their work spans content creation, community engagement, paid social advertising, influencer partnerships, and performance analytics.

In a large company, the role may specialize — one marketer focuses on social listening, another on content creation, another on paid media.

These titles are often used interchangeably, but they describe different scopes of work.

Aspect	Social Media Marketer	Social Media Manager
Primary focus	Executing specific campaigns and content initiatives	Overseeing the overall social media strategy
Scope	Narrower — individual campaigns, platforms, or content types	Broader — brand consistency, team coordination, long-term planning
Typical employment	Often freelance, contract, or agency-based	Usually in-house with cross-departmental responsibilities
Key metrics	Engagement, reach, conversions per campaign	Brand health, follower growth, team output, integrated ROI

A social media manager develops the overarching strategy and ensures all social activity aligns with business objectives. A social media marketer executes within that framework — creating posts, running ads, responding to comments, and analyzing campaign data. In organizations without both roles, one person may wear both hats.

A social media marketer’s daily work spans creative, analytical, and strategic tasks. The specific mix depends on company size, industry, and whether the role is in-house or agency-side.

Content Creation and Scheduling

Social media marketers produce platform-native content — short-form video for TikTok and Instagram Reels, static posts for Facebook and LinkedIn, Stories, live streams, and text-based threads. They write captions, source or create visuals, and schedule posts using tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, or native platform schedulers. Content calendars map posts to product launches, seasonal events, and cultural moments.

Audience Targeting and Community Engagement

Identifying the target audience is foundational. A social media marketer researches demographics, interests, and online behavior to define who the brand should reach. Once content is live, they respond to comments, direct messages, and mentions — building community and managing brand reputation in real time.

Many social media marketers run or coordinate paid campaigns. This includes setting budgets, defining audiences, A/B testing creative, and optimizing for cost-per-click or cost-per-acquisition. Platforms like Meta Ads Manager and TikTok Ads Manager are core tools. Paid social is distinct from organic posting: it requires budget management, pixel implementation, and conversion tracking.

Analytics and Reporting

Social media marketers use platform-native analytics (Meta Insights, TikTok Analytics) and third-party tools (Sprout Social, Later) to measure reach, engagement, click-through rates, and conversions. They report on what’s working, identify underperforming content, and adjust strategy based on data — not intuition.

Trend Monitoring and Platform Adaptation

Social platforms change constantly. Algorithm updates, new features, and shifting user behavior mean a social media marketer must stay current.

The role demands a blend of creative, analytical, and strategic abilities. Employers in the United States consistently list the following competencies:

Copywriting and visual storytelling — writing captions that convert, selecting or creating images and video that stop the scroll.
Data analysis — interpreting engagement metrics, attribution modeling, and translating numbers into actionable insights.
Platform expertise — deep knowledge of Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and emerging platforms.
Advertising management — hands-on experience with Meta Ads Manager, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
Strategic planning — aligning social activity with broader marketing and business goals.
Community management — handling public interactions with professionalism and brand voice.
Project management — juggling content calendars, campaign deadlines, and cross-team collaboration.

There is no single required credential. Social media marketers enter the field through degrees in marketing or communications, self-taught portfolios, certifications, or career pivots from adjacent roles.

Learn the platforms by using them. Build and grow a personal or hobby account. Test content types, posting times, and engagement tactics. First-hand experience with what works is more convincing to employers than any certificate.
Take structured courses. Platforms like Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, and HubSpot Academy offer free and paid certifications in social media marketing, content marketing, and digital advertising.
Build a portfolio. Document results: screenshots of growth, engagement spikes, or ad performance. Even unpaid work — running social for a local nonprofit or a friend’s small business — counts.
Seek entry-level roles. Titles like social media coordinator, junior content creator, or marketing assistant are common starting points.
Expand your professional network. Engage with marketing communities on LinkedIn, attend virtual and in-person events, and follow practitioners who share their results publicly.

Compensation varies by location, experience, industry, and whether the role is freelance or full-time.

Social media managers tend to earn more than marketers at the same experience level due to broader strategic responsibilities. Freelancers who specialize in paid social advertising or high-demand industries (e-commerce, SaaS) often command premium rates.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects faster-than-average growth for advertising, promotions, and marketing management roles. Businesses of every size now treat social media as a primary customer-acquisition and retention channel — not an optional extra.

The career suits people who enjoy variety: no two days are identical. It rewards continuous learning, as platforms and best practices evolve rapidly. Downsides include the always-on nature of social media (crisis communication doesn’t respect business hours) and the pressure to produce measurable ROI from channels where attribution isn’t always clean.

Relevance to Affiliate Marketing

Social marketers intersect with affiliate marketing in several practical ways, depending on your role.

For Advertisers (Brands Running Affiliate Programs)

A social media marketer on your team can amplify your affiliate program by creating content that affiliates can repurpose — product demo videos, testimonial graphics, swipe-copy captions. They can also recruit affiliates through organic social outreach and run paid campaigns that drive traffic to landing pages where affiliate links are tracked. However, platform policies on affiliate links vary: Instagram allows one link in bio (often a Linktree or similar), while TikTok restricts certain direct affiliate URLs. Your social marketer needs to understand these platform-specific limitations to avoid compliance issues.

For Publishers (Affiliates / Content Creators)

If you earn commissions promoting products, you are effectively acting as a social marketer — even if you don’t use that title. The skills overlap heavily: audience building, content creation, engagement, and conversion optimization. A publisher who treats their affiliate activity with the discipline of a professional social media marketer — planning content calendars, analyzing performance data, testing ad creative — will outperform one who posts sporadically.

For Affiliate Program Managers

When hiring or collaborating with social marketers, clarify which definition you mean. A social media marketer can help grow your program’s visibility and publisher recruitment. A social marketing specialist (behavior-change focus) is rarely relevant unless your affiliate program operates in health, sustainability, or public-sector verticals where mission-driven messaging matters. The distinction prevents mis-hires and wasted budget.

Practical Workflow Example

Their in-house social media marketer:

Creates short-form video content demonstrating products in use.
Posts organically on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.
Shares top-performing content assets with affiliates via the brand’s partner portal.
Tracks which social channels drive the most affiliate-link clicks using UTM parameters and the affiliate platform’s reporting.

The social marketer doesn’t manage the affiliate program — but their work directly fuels it.

A digital marketer covers a broader set of channels: SEO, email marketing, paid search, display advertising, and possibly social media. A social media marketer specializes exclusively in social platforms.

Hire a Social Media Marketer When	Hire a Digital Marketer When
Social media is your primary growth channel	You need multi-channel strategy and execution
You need platform-specific creative and community management	You need someone who can run Google Ads, email flows, and SEO
Your social presence is underdeveloped or inconsistent	You have social covered but lack broader digital expertise
You’re investing heavily in influencer and creator partnerships	You’re optimizing a full-funnel digital acquisition strategy

Many organizations eventually need both. A common pattern: a digital marketing manager oversees strategy across channels, with a social media marketer reporting to them or working alongside as a specialist.

To reinforce the two meanings, here are concrete examples for each.

Social Marketing (behavior change):

The “Truth” anti-smoking campaign in the United States, which used edgy, youth-targeted messaging to reduce teen smoking rates.
Transport for London’s cycling safety campaign, applying audience research to encourage helmet use and safer road behavior.
Water-conservation programs in drought-prone states that use community-based social marketing to promote shorter showers and native-plant landscaping.

Social Media Marketing (commercial):

A direct-to-consumer skincare brand using TikTok Shop and influencer affiliates to drive product sales.
A B2B SaaS company running LinkedIn thought-leadership content and paid lead-generation campaigns.
A local restaurant posting daily Instagram Stories of menu specials and responding to every customer comment.

Limitations and Obsolete Practices

Not everything labeled “social marketing” or “social media marketing” is effective. Several practices are outdated or carry meaningful limitations.

Obsolete practices to avoid:

Posting identical content across all platforms without adaptation. Each platform rewards different formats and tones. Cross-posting without tailoring signals laziness. Purchased followers dilute real engagement rates and damage reach.
Treating social media as a broadcast channel. Brands that post without engaging — no replies, no community interaction — see declining organic reach and weak brand affinity.
Relying solely on organic reach. Organic social reach has declined across most platforms. A sustainable strategy almost always requires some paid investment.

Current limitations to acknowledge:

Attribution remains imperfect. A customer may discover a brand on TikTok, search for it on Google, and buy via an affiliate link — making it hard to credit social media accurately.
Platform dependency creates risk. Algorithm changes, account suspensions, or platform decline (remember Vine? Periscope?) can wipe out a channel overnight.
The line between social media marketer and content creator is blurring. Many brands now hire creators directly rather than going through marketing generalists, shifting the role toward strategy and paid media management.

Frequently asked questions

: Core skills include copywriting, visual content creation, data analysis, platform expertise (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube), paid advertising management, community engagement, strategic planning, and project management. Employers value demonstrated results — portfolio evidence of growth or conversions — over formal credentials.
: Social marketing examples include anti-smoking campaigns like "Truth," water-conservation programs, vaccination drives, and recycling initiatives — all applying commercial marketing techniques to promote behaviors that benefit society. Social media marketing examples include brand campaigns on TikTok, Instagram influencer partnerships, LinkedIn B2B lead generation, and paid Meta ad funnels.
: A social media marketer is a marketing professional who manages a brand's presence on social platforms — creating content, engaging with audiences, running paid ads, and analyzing performance. The role may be in-house, agency-based, or freelance, and ranges from generalist (owning all social activity at a small business) to specialist (focusing on one platform or function at a large company).
: Start by building hands-on platform experience — grow a personal or hobby account. Take structured courses from Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, or HubSpot Academy. Build a portfolio documenting real results. Apply for entry-level roles like social media coordinator. Network actively on LinkedIn and within marketing communities. No single degree or certificate is required.
: The role offers variety, creative and analytical balance, and remote-work flexibility. Downsides include always-on expectations during crises and the challenge of proving ROI in channels with imperfect attribution.
: A social media marketer executes campaigns and creates content within a specific scope. A social media manager develops the overarching strategy, manages teams, ensures brand consistency, and integrates social with broader marketing goals.
: They create and schedule platform-native content, target and engage audiences, run paid social advertising campaigns, analyze performance metrics, monitor trends, and adapt strategy based on data. The specific mix depends on company size and industry.
: Yes, many social media marketers manage paid advertising campaigns on Meta (Facebook/Instagram), TikTok, LinkedIn, and other platforms. This includes budget setting, audience targeting, creative testing, and performance optimization. In larger organizations, paid social may be handled by a separate performance marketing team.
: Social media marketing is the use of social platforms — Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others — to connect with audiences, build brand awareness, promote products or services, and drive business goals. It encompasses organic content, paid advertising, influencer partnerships, and community management.
: It provides direct access to audiences where they spend significant time, enables two-way communication with customers, supports brand building and reputation management, and drives measurable outcomes including website traffic, leads, and sales. For many small businesses, social media is the most cost-effective marketing channel available.
: It depends on the audience and goal. Instagram and TikTok lead for consumer brands and short-form video. LinkedIn dominates B2B marketing and professional audiences. Facebook remains strong for community building and local business marketing. YouTube is essential for long-form video and search-driven discovery. The best platform is the one where your target audience already spends time.
: A social media marketer handles content creation, audience engagement, paid advertising, analytics, and trend adaptation for a brand's social media channels. The role balances creative work (writing, design, video) with analytical work (metrics, reporting, optimization).
: Because audiences are there — over 300 million people in the United States use social media regularly. It's the only channel where brands can have direct, public conversations with customers at scale. It supports every stage of the marketing funnel, from awareness through retention. And unlike paid search, which stops delivering the moment you stop paying, organic social builds compounding brand equity over time.
: A digital marketer is a professional who uses online channels — search engines, email, social media, display advertising, content marketing, and websites — to reach and convert customers. The role is broader than a social media marketer, encompassing SEO, paid search (Google Ads), email automation, and analytics across all digital touchpoints.
: Hire a digital marketer when you need multi-channel strategy and execution — someone who can manage SEO, paid search, email marketing, and possibly social media under one role. This is common in smaller organizations where one person must cover the full digital footprint.
: Hire a social media marketer when social platforms are your primary or most promising growth channel, when your social presence needs dedicated creative and community attention, or when you're investing significantly in influencer and creator partnerships. If social media is an afterthought in your marketing mix, a broader digital marketer may be more practical first.
: It depends on scale. Organizations with significant social media investment and multi-channel digital needs benefit from both — a digital marketing manager overseeing strategy across channels, with a social media marketer executing the social component. Smaller businesses often start with one generalist digital marketer and add a social specialist as social media becomes a larger share of revenue.

Boost Your Impact with Social Marketing Tools

Leverage affiliate software to amplify your social marketing campaigns and drive positive change for your brand and community.

Explore Affiliate Tools See More Glossary Terms

Learn more

What Does a Social Marketer Do?

Discover what social marketers do, their key responsibilities, required skills, and how PostAffiliatePro helps optimize social media marketing campaigns for max...