The skills needed to be a social media professional have changed significantly. Here are 6 skills you need to be a great social media pro.

Basic/ Digest...

Listening
This one is still very much true, and perhaps even more so. The best social media pros listen the most actively and most aggressively.

Pattern Recognition
Instantly identifying patterns and being able to capitalize upon them are some of the skills that separate good social practitioners from great ones.

Visual Thinking
Today, with every social network embracing visuals and multi-media, being able to represent the brand visually is absolutely critical.

Statistical Analysis

Understanding what works, what might work, why it might work, and under what circumstances is a major differentiator within the social media professionals ranks.

Improvisation
Understanding how to handle a wide variety of situations with aplomb, humor and empathy is a huge part of the business now, especially for front line community managers

Public Speaking
If you really want to make a run in this business, you are going to have to merchandise your success internally and externally.

___________________________________

► Receive a FREE daily summary of The Marketing Technology Alert directly to your inbox. To subscribe, please go to http://ineomarketing.com/About_The_MAR_Sub.html  (your privacy is protected).

Implementing a social media crisis response protocol is a best practice in an organization's social media strategy.

Advanced/ Digest...

It is important to be prepared with a plan to address negative themes that are being amplified in social media, which can attract broader media coverage, as well as potential damage to the company and brand.

A typical crisis plan covers areas such as:

-- >  Definition of roles and responsibilities. Who is responsible for monitoring social media accounts? Is there an expectation that this will be done 24×7? What channels will be monitored? When negative comments appear, what will happen?

-- >  Process and workflow. The person who monitors social media should have a process prepared in advance for responding to various types of attacks. Typically, the most important departments are customer service, legal and communications.

-- >  Agree on the timeframe for response. In social media, it’s usually best to respond in as short a period of time as possible, especially on channels such as Twitter where a snowball effect can happen very quickly.

-- >  Training and practice. As virtually any employee may uncover a social media attack, all employees must be trained what to do. Best-in-class organizations practice crisis response in a variety of scenarios. This helps to uncover gaps in response plans, so problems can be handled more quickly when they occur.

__________________________________

► NEW: iNeoMarketing makes content marketing easy with the new Q8 Content. Q8 fills your content pipeline daily with relevant articles that your audience wants to read. Learn more and sign up for the beta program: http://www.Q8content.com.

► Receive a FREE daily summary of The Marketing Technology Alert directly to your inbox. To subscribe, please go to http://ineomarketing.com/About_The_MAR_Sub.html  (your privacy is protected).