Channel judgement
Matches audience, purpose, format, timing, and measurement to each platform.
Cross-posts the same asset everywhere and treats trends as strategy.
Marketing & Creative
Social Media Manager Job Description
A Social Media Manager builds relevant channel programmes, publishes and responds with care, and helps an organisation learn from public audience conversations.
State the audiences, channels, publishing volume, response coverage, creative support, and escalation duties before adapting the template.
Candidate-facing template
Edit the description for your organisation
Replace bracketed details, remove anything that is not genuinely required, and obtain the appropriate internal approval before advertising.
Ready-to-edit job description
Copying excludes all recruiter notes below.
Social Media Manager
- Location
- [Location or working arrangement]
- Employment type
- [Full-time, part-time, or contract]
- Reports to
- [Head of Brand, Communications Director, or Marketing Manager]
About the role
[Company name] is seeking a Social Media Manager to lead our presence across [approved channels]. You will turn audience and brand priorities into useful publishing, community interaction, campaign support, and clear learning while managing public risk responsibly.
What you will be responsible for
- Define each channel’s audience, purpose, content role, publishing rhythm, and success evidence.
- Plan, create, commission, edit, approve, schedule, and maintain accessible social content.
- Monitor and respond to community questions, feedback, risk, and escalation under documented guidelines.
- Coordinate campaigns, events, employee voices, customer stories, paid support, and partner activity.
- Evaluate audience quality, conversation, reach, action, sentiment, service issues, and production effort.
What success looks like
- Channels have a clear purpose and recognisable value for their intended audiences.
- Community responses are timely, accurate, human, and escalated appropriately.
- Publishing choices improve from platform, audience, customer, and business evidence.
Essential qualifications
- Portfolio showing channel judgement, writing, visual briefing, community care, and measured outcomes.
- Ability to adapt tone and format while preserving accuracy and brand standards.
- Strong planning, approval, rights, accessibility, and real-time prioritisation habits.
- Calm judgement around criticism, misinformation, privacy, safeguarding, and crisis escalation.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with [audience, sector, region, platform mix, or regulated setting].
- Experience with short-form video, creator partnerships, paid social, employee advocacy, or social listening.
Tools and working knowledge
- Social publishing, listening, moderation, and analytics platforms
- Design, video, captioning, asset, and approval tools
- CRM, support, link tracking, project, and reporting systems
Compensation: [Add approved range, currency, bonus basis, benefits, and any rota, travel, event, or out-of-hours terms.]
[Company name] will discuss reasonable adjustments and expects captions, readable creative, alt text, and accessible links within supported platform limits.
How to apply
Apply through [method] with selected work and the audience, purpose, personal contribution, result, and learning for each example.
Performance expectations
What good performance looks like
Use these outcomes to replace vague activity lists with the evidence the hiring manager expects to see after the person joins.
Channel plans stop low-value posting and focus effort on defined audience behaviour.
Approval and escalation routes allow timely responses without bypassing necessary controls.
Reports distinguish platform reach from meaningful community, service, and journey outcomes.
Hiring-manager intake
Questions to settle before advertising
Record specific answers so sourcing, screening, and interview decisions use the same definition of the role.
- 1
Which channels, audiences, languages, brands, regions, and publishing volumes are in scope?
- 2
How much original writing, design, video, community response, paid media, and strategy is expected?
- 3
What response-time, out-of-hours, crisis, safeguarding, privacy, and legal duties apply?
- 4
Which creative, customer-service, communications, and subject-expert support is available?
Evaluation criteria
Evidence to use in a Social Media Manager scorecard
Agree the criteria before interviews begin, then score examples against the same evidence standard.
Community care
Responds with empathy and accuracy, protects privacy, and knows when to move or escalate a conversation.
Uses a witty brand voice when the person needs service, safety, or factual help.
Editorial operations
Controls briefs, rights, approvals, accessibility, schedules, and contingency content.
Relies on spontaneous creativity without a dependable publishing system.
Structured interview
Social Media Manager interview questions and strong signals
Ask the same core questions in the same order, then use follow-ups to understand the candidate’s individual contribution.
1
Show us a post that performed well but that you would not repeat.
Strong answer signal
Balances metrics with audience quality, brand fit, risk, sustainability, and downstream behaviour.
2
How would you handle a public complaint containing personal information?
Strong answer signal
Protects privacy, acknowledges appropriately, moves to a secure route, records, and escalates.
3
Tell me about a platform trend you deliberately ignored.
Strong answer signal
Uses audience relevance, brand purpose, evidence, resources, timing, and risk rather than personal taste.
Related titles
Check the scope behind the title
Social Media Specialist — usually has narrower channel or execution ownership.
Community Manager — focuses more on ongoing member relationships and moderation.
Social Content Lead — may emphasise creative formats and production rather than customer response.
Common hiring mistakes
Problems to remove before publishing
Expecting constant availability without stating rotas, response coverage, and compensation.
Combining strategy, daily creation, professional video, design, paid media, service, and PR crisis leadership alone.
Evaluating applicants by follower count without context on audience, budget, contribution, or outcomes.
Continue the hiring workflow
Related roles and recruiter resources
Related job descriptions
Helpful recruiter resources
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Social Recruiting for Modern Hiring
Explore practical use of social channels in recruitment.
Source and review notes
How this template was prepared
- Language
- International English
- Prepared by
- ATZ CRM Editorial Team
- Review
- ATZ CRM Recruitment Editorial Review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-05
O*NET: Public Relations Specialists
Reference for occupation tasks, knowledge, skills, abilities, and work activities.
ESCO: occupations and skills
Reference for internationally recognised occupation and skills terminology.
Qualifications, compensation, licences, working conditions, and equal-opportunity wording must be checked for the role and location before use.
Recruiter questions
Social Media Manager job description FAQs
What does a Social Media Manager do?
They set channel plans, coordinate content, manage communities, support campaigns, handle public risk, and improve decisions from audience evidence.
Should a Social Media Manager be available outside working hours?
Only when the role genuinely requires it. State the rota, escalation threshold, response expectation, time off, and compensation.
What belongs in a social media portfolio?
Ask for selected work with audience, objective, individual contribution, resources, results, risk considerations, and learning.