You’ve always got the perfect caption. Your friends come to you before they post on IG. Tweeting is your first language. Sound like you?
Social media managers are innovative, detail-oriented, and excellent at communication. They are responsible for the planning and execution of the company’s social media strategy, which involves overseeing the brand’s marketing campaigns, writing and reviewing content, and amplifying online reach and presence.
These days, social media managers are high in demand, and the industry is evolving every day. Experts expect job growth of over 10% through 2026, and as the market continues to expand rapidly into new forms of content like TikTok and Clubhouse, there’s never been a better time to be in social media.
It’s an exciting field, but also increasingly competitive. If you want to be a social media manager, you’ll need to stand out from the crowd. The first step is to make sure you have a stellar resume.
So, what should a social media manager resume look like in 2023?
Let’s take a look at some successful resume templates that you can download and use. We’ll also go over some of the essential skills that recruiters are looking for in a social media manager, as well as other industry tips to help you get that extra edge. Finally, we’ll wrap it up with some of the best action verbs to use in your bullet points to really make your resume shine.
When applying for a social media manager role, it’s important to showcase demonstrated success and knowledge through relevant experience. In your work experience section, make sure to quantify your impact with numbers and timelines. Phrases such as “Increased digital reach from 75,000 to 350,000 in one calendar year” are more powerful than “Worked on increasing digital reach”.
Notice that each bullet in the experience section starts with strong action verbs such as “generated”, “tripled”, and “increased”. While all resumes should use strong action verbs, it is particularly important for social media manager resumes to quantify their accomplishments and provide proof of your experience.
Social media managers must know how to communicate clearly and succinctly. This resume shows that the applicant has studied communication, with a Bachelor’s degree in English, Journalism and Business Studies, and that they continued to build on their knowledge with a Masters in Journalism. They also highlight key social media management skills such as marketing strategy and data analysis.
As a senior social media manager, you’ll likely be leading and managing a team of employees on top of your social media projects. The applicant notes that they “Improved employee retention by 87%” while managing both contractors and full-time employees. This shows the hiring manager that the applicant has expertise in both social media and management.
If you’re looking for a senior level role, most other applicants will have plenty of experience in the social media space, just like you. This template sets the applicant apart by focusing on select projects where their skills stand out. In this example, the template details their leadership in boosting online sales with SEO and highlights a successful product launch. When selecting project experience, we suggest you choose projects where your skills and experience align closely with key words and responsibilities outlined in the job posting.
Managing social media campaigns at the senior level requires deep expertise and technical skills. This resume lists the applicant’s skills and certifications in various social media academies and analytics software, demonstrating their extensive knowledge in this area.
A social media marketing manager is someone who oversees many aspects of a company’s digital marketing strategy and focuses mainly on social media channels. The social media marketing manager may oversee email campaigns, content on platforms such as Instagram, opportunities on radio or podcasts, digital advertisements, and more. As a social media marketing manager, you will monitor and analyze engagement data, oversee project progress, work cross departmentally to develop new content, and engage with internal stakeholders to ensure initiatives are aligned.
To become a social media marketing manager, you will need an undergraduate degree in a related field such as marketing or communications. A master’s degree is not necessary but can help you land the role. Hiring managers will look for candidates with extensive digital marketing experience, so prior roles as a digital content creator, digital marketer, or marketing supervisor will help you stand out. To land this role, it’s important to have considerable experience using digital marketing tools, great analytical thinking skills, as well as a creative and flexible mindset.
Digital advertising is integral to a successful advertising strategy in today's world. With that in mind, it’s important to showcase your ability to use digital marketing tools, such as Google AdWords, effectively. Google, Hubspot, and many other companies offer online certification courses in digital advertising. You can add these credentials to your resume to stand out.
As a social media marketing manager, you will be responsible for overseeing each project at large, as well as delegating each task within a project to the proper team. It’s important to showcase your ability to effectively manage projects, delegate tasks, and lead a team on your resume.
Social media marketing managers create, plan, and run marketing campaigns on various social media platforms. If you’re applying for one of these positions, you’ll need strong marketing skills as well as the ability to generate engagement on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Use your resume to show off your social media savvy as well as your previous accomplishments in marketing.
Social media marketing managers need to have strong leadership and management skills. One of the best ways to demonstrate your initiative and productivity is to use strong action verbs to discuss your achievements. Verbs like “launched”, “collaborated”, and “promoted” highlight your professional strengths and vividly illustrate what you accomplished at past jobs.
If you want to stand out as a job applicant, your resume should be full of clear, specific accomplishments from your past jobs. When you can point to measurable achievements such as “increased conversions by 145%” or “managed advertising for more than 50 social media accounts”, you show hiring managers proof of your marketing abilities.
While social media management focuses more on the management and use of social media accounts, social media marketing management emphasizes generating leads to those accounts, or even the company’s website, through paid or organic channels. When applying for a social media marketing manager role, your work history and skills section should show evidence of your experience in such areas.
The bullet points in this template utilize strong action verbs such as “launched”, “lead”, and “promoted” to emphasize their role in the highlighted activities. The bullets also clearly quantify the results achieved, such as “engagement growth 45% higher than average” and “increased conversions by 145%”. Due to the quantitative nature of marketing and social media, it is important to highlight such accomplishments on your resume to show the hiring manager that you have experience with effectively increasing sales and engagement.
This resume effectively displays the applicants’ blend of expertise in both social media and marketing. Their work history and skills in advertising, market research, and in content marketing clearly demonstrate their competency and ability to succeed in a social media marketing manager role.
Many students seeking their first entry level job may feel like they have little to no experience in their desired industry, or that they don’t stand a chance among the sea of applicants. If you feel that way, don’t worry -- everyone starts somewhere. Having a strong academic history or experience in relevant projects can effectively demonstrate your strong analytical skills, or even just an interest in social media that many recruiters often look for at the entry level.
Even though this template doesn’t detail an extensive work history, the applicant demonstrates their interest in social media with their previous work as a social media manager intern. Additionally, their other activities and experience, such as their social media work in their community project, showcase their ability and understanding of organic social media growth.
When applying to your first entry level position, leading with your educational history and highlighting relevant coursework, such as data analysis, can communicate those abilities you’ve developed outside of your work history to your recruiter.
A social media strategist is a social media expert who focuses more on big picture strategy than the day-to-day management of social media accounts. This template includes a clear elevator pitch and lays out relevant work experience, education, and skills/certifications that are tailored specifically for such a strategic role.
With a quick skim of the elevator pitch at the top of this resume, the recruiter for this position can obtain a high-level picture of the applicant. They know that the applicant has worked in social media strategy for over 10 years, and has expertise in developing and executing campaigns to increase sales volume and market share.
Because of the specific expertise that social media strategy often requires, it’s important to showcase your experience in these areas. This applicant highlights their technical ability with specific platforms such Facebook Ads Manager, Social Report, and Wordpress.
A social media director is a professional with a strong background in marketing and/or advertising who oversees social media strategies on behalf of a company. Social media directors are responsible for managing content creation, scheduling posts, looking at online engagement data, and more. The director will often have direct reports in the marketing department.
When hiring for this role, recruiters will be looking for a specific set of skills. A Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business, or PR is the best fit for the role. Hiring managers will typically be looking for someone with at least a few years of experience running social media account(s) for a business. Finally, hiring managers love to see a candidate with content editing skills and familiarity with technical tools used to monitor data.
You may have noticed that the templates above all had one thing in common -- a strong skills section. To ensure that your social media manager resume stands out from the crowd, you’ll want to show that you’ve got what it takes for the job. Recruiters want managers who can communicate well and lead with confidence, but who can also juggle other responsibilities, such as launching successful ad campaigns or interpreting website data. Make sure to choose skills that showcase your abilities in such areas.
On top of the social media manager skills listed here, don’t forget to read the job posting carefully. If the recruiter mentions any skills that you have, be sure to list those on your resume, and even include detailed examples of when you used those skills in the bullet points on your resume.
Finally -- a recruiter can receive hundreds of resumes a day. Many companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) or other technology to sort through the mountains of applicants. But don’t let this discourage you -- we’ll teach you how to put together a resume with the highest probability of getting you past the automated filter.
This word cloud highlights the important keywords that appear on Social Media Manager job descriptions and resumes. The bigger the word, the more frequently it appears on job postings, and the more 'important' it is.
The average recruiter spends less than a minute -- at most -- reviewing resumes. That’s why it’s incredibly important to know how to craft a resume that quickly shows that you’re the perfect person for the job.
How exactly do you do that? We’ve gathered the top tips for creating a social media manager resume:
Successful social media manager resumes highlight relevant achievements using strong action verbs. Use these to emphasize your role in achieving measurable impact and advancing sales volume, boosting brand awareness, or hitting key performance indicators (KPIs). Want to double the power of a strong verb? Combine it with quantifiable results to show the tangible impact of what you accomplished.
Social media managers are jack of all trades and there are a massive amount of verbs you could use to emphasize your strengths. We have an entire article devoted to action verbs to use in resumes.
For a full list of effective resume action verbs, visit Resume Action Verbs.
If you're a senior-level employee, or you're changing careers to become a Social Media Manager, it's useful to add a paragraph at the top of your resume highlighting your most impressive accomplishments. This is called a resume summary.
Here's an example of a summary that can be used on a Social Media Manager resume.
A resume summary is a totally optional section, and in most cases, it's better to leave it out of your resume than include it. For example, if you're a student or mid-level hire, you should not include a summary, and instead use the space to add to your work experience.
To learn how to write an effective resume summary for your Social Media Manager resume, or figure out if you need one, please read Resume Summary Examples for Job Seekers: When To Include One.
You should use bullet points to describe your achievements in your Social Media Manager resume. Here are sample bullet points to help you get started:
Analyzed global opportunities for the company's different membership tiers; designed and introduced a new membership tier which is projected to generate 300k new users in its first year
Accelerated goal to increase digital sales by improving e-commerce experience on existing website and adding new storefronts on Amazon and eBay; analyzed consumer data to ensure accurate targeting by segment; resulting in 300% increase in online orders in the following year.
Reduced signup drop-offs from 65% to 15%, increased user-engagement by 40%, and boosted content generation by 15%, through a combination of user interviews and A/B-testing-driven product flow optimization
Overhauled the company's website by increasing graphics usage by 50% and mobile responsiveness by 100%; generated 70% more leads via email capture forms, reduced bounce rate by 20%
Led full redesign of website with findings from customer segmentation and competitive research, increasing website leads by 200%
For more sample bullet points and details on how to write effective bullet points, see our articles on resume bullet points, how to quantify your resume and resume accomplishments.
Template 1 of 9: Social Media Manager Resume Example
Social media managers become more in demand with each passing year. In today’s world, companies rely on social media to strengthen their brand, find new customers, and engage current ones. As such, many companies choose to hire a social media manager to improve their social media presence. As a social media manager, you may be responsible for developing social media initiatives and content, implementing effective social media advertising, tracking and analyzing the company’s social media engagement, and more.
To become a social media manager, you’ll typically need a bachelor’s degree in a related field such as marketing, graphic design, or communications. Hiring managers will look for a candidate with previous digital marketing and content creation experience. Prior roles as a digital strategist, digital marketer, or content creator will help land this role. Moreover, hiring managers will be looking for a candidate with a strong understanding of social media tools, a creative mindset, and great project management skills.
Tips to help you write your Social Media Manager resume in 2023
Highlight your knowledge of SEO principles
SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is a technical writing skill that focuses on strategies to ensure your written content ranks high on search engines such as Google. Optimized content gets more clicks and views, and therefore, it’s an important skill to have for a social media manager. You can take online SEO certifications and add them to your resume.
Detail your experience partnering with digital influencers or brands
Oftentimes, the best way to get a company’s social media presence to grow is to partner with others that have a large presence on social media. Any experience you have partnering with influencers, brands, or brand-affiliates should be highlighted on your resume.
Skills you can include on your Social Media Manager resume