Social Media Marketing Salary: How Much Does a Social Media Manager Make?
lauryn preston
Table of Contents
If you’re looking into a career path in social media marketing, you’re likely wondering how much social media managers earn. This is a little tricker to answer than you’d think. There are so many different social media related job titles and specializations in the job market that it’s difficult for potential social media marketers to know what they can expect, in terms of salary ranges.
Regardless of where you’re starting in your journey to become a social media manager, the team of marketing professionals at KIOPI are here to help! We’ve put together this guide to help you examine a few of the important factors that can affect the average salary of a social media manager.
What is the Social Media Manager Average Salary?
According to Payscale.com, the average social media manager makes $53,221 annually. However, the total pay can vary widely depending on your location, education level, amount of content creation expected, the amount of company growth and success you can provide, as well as the size of the company for which you’re working.
As you can see, the bottom 10% of social media managers make around $36,000 and the top 10% earn over $82,000.
Many social media managers choose to specialize in specific industries, offering unique expertise for their target company’s content strategy. Doing this allows you, as a social media manager, to negotiate a higher social media manager salary.
Factors that Affect Social Media Manager Salaries
Like we’ve said, social media manager salaries can vary greatly. So, you really need to look into the various factors that influence how much you could earn as a social media manager.
These factors include:
Marketing Education
Like many job offerings and positions in the workforce, your level of education could influence the average salary you could earn as a social media manager. However, your degree choice isn’t really the deciding factor. Acquiring something as simple as a social media certificate could help boost your average base salary.
What do we mean by this?
So, for example, those who have a master’s degree in marketing, can potentially negotiate for higher salaries than those with only a bachelor’s degree in the same area.
In contrast, if you don’t have a bachelor’s degree in marketing, then you can potentially raise your average base salary by taking several social media courses online.
Having a bachelor’s degree can help you land a spot as a:
If you have a master’s in marketing, you could secure a position as a:
With social media marketing, more education isn’t the largest factor in determining average salary. In many cases, it’s how much you’re able to help company growth!
So, don’t let a lack of marketing education hold you back from becoming a great social media manager!
Social Media Management Experience
Like any other occupation, the more experience you have, the more money you can expect to receive.
Additionally, the more you’re able to show for the experience you’ve received, the more you can justify asking for an increased social media manager salary. Business owners like to see proof that you can bring in a decent return on investment before they feel comfortable paying you above the market median.
Salary for Social Media Managers by Experience
According to Glassdoor, a social media manager with no experience can earn $45,582 per year, with the opportunity to make up to $72,000 annually.
This brings us to our next point.
A social media manager with at least 4 years of experience should average $58,439 annually with the opportunity to make up to $91,000 per year.
Social media managers with over 15 years of experience (with or without an advanced degree) should make a mean salary of $94,576 with the opportunity to make up to $154,000 in total pay.
Social Media Marketing Skills and Talent
If you want to be successful in the marketing industry, you must possess a range of skills.
Generally, these skills include:
- strong in communications
- graphic design skills
- general knowledge of how social networks operate
- strong understanding of social media metrics, including how to use analytics data
- keyword research skills
- social media strategy implementation
Suppose you expect to be compensated more because you bring valuable insight and experience to the table. In that case, you’ll need to make sure that you’re also competent in various social media measuring skills so that you can justify your pay to potential employers or businesses that are interested in your work.
Location
Location is a huge factor for determining social media manager salaries. If you’re able to work remotely, you’ll want to target companies that are located in higher-paying states, such as New York, Washington, and Massachusetts.
Employers and Organizations
The best digital marketing agencies in the industry are always striving to recruit the best social media managers. And, these companies are always willing to pay top dollar for impressive marketers.
The bigger and more reputable the digital marketing company, the better the chance that they’re working with at least one enterprise client. This means that they should have more wiggle-room in terms of salary ranges paid.
Bigger marketing firms usually offer higher average social media manager salaries than smaller marketing companies because they need to continue to keep top talent. This ensures they continue to attract the best employees and remain an industry leader.
Social Media Manager Salary by Industry
Like we said earlier, some social media managers choose to focus on one specific industry or niche in order to help raise their average total compensation.
When making career choices, it’s important to know which industries are paying the highest median salary for a social media manager, like yourself.
Here are a few of the top industries for social media managers:
Social Media Manager for Tech Industry
Tech and IT companies tend to pay their social media managers top dollar because having a social media presence is critical to their success.
According to Comparably, if you’re a social media manager for a tech or IT company, you can expect for your median salary to fall within the range of $58,000 to $93,500, as the United States median for this industry is $63,265.
Social Media Manager for Healthcare Industry
After the onset of COVID, many young adults have started turning to social media channels for healthcare information. This makes social media managers in the healthcare sector exponentially more valuable to corporate business entities.
According to Comparably, the average salary for a social media manager in the healthcare sector is $71, 230.
Social Media Manager for Finance Industry
We know that finance marketing on social media platforms may not be the most entertaining or fun position available, but finance companies, in general, pay their social media managers more.
According to Zippia, the average social media manager makes $74,173 annually when they’re trying to reach consumers in the finance sector.
Social Media Manager for the Government
According to Indeed, the average salary for a United States Government social media manager in an entry-level position starts at $47,930, 8% below the national average. However, a senior-level social media manager strategist position offers an annual salary median of $162,465 per year. This is 86% above the national average for a social media manager.
Job Growth for Social Media Managers
As social media platforms grow, so does the demand for social media managers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for social media managers should increase by 10% from 2021-2031. This is faster than the average increase for other job outlooks.
How KIOPI Can Help You Increase Your Social Media Manager Salary
If you’re looking to become a social media manager, if you’re wanting a career in communications, or if a business already wants to outsource social media efforts to you, you’ll need to become an excellent time manager.
Managing social accounts for different companies takes time. There are so many elements of a social media campaign to juggle. Many people believe that being a social media manager just means scrolling aimlessly through the news feeds and occasionally posting on behalf of your client.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
If you’re starting out as a social media manager, you’ll want to have systems in place that help you organize all of the jobs that you’ll be responsible for accomplishing. The key for earning a higher social media manager salary is to find a system that works for you.
KIOPI helps make this possible. Let’s see how.
Social Media Content Calendar
One of the best ways to start is to create a social media calendar. This will save you time, will help keep you organized, and will ensure that you’re always one step ahead.
Having a social media content calendar is possibly the best way to ensure that your clients receive consistent, high-quality content.
With KIOPI, you’re able to schedule and overview all of your upcoming and completed social media posts. This helps you track what you’ve already posted, plan social posts ahead of time, and coordinate your efforts to ensure your efforts are exceeding your clients’ expectations.
Social Media Content Scheduling
Social media management takes time and effort.
With KIOPI, you can plan out your social media content and then schedule it across either a single platform or across multiple social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google My Business with KIOPI’s social scheduling tool.
Regardless of whether you’re managing a single client or if you have multiple jobs, the social media content scheduling tool will make the job of social media management much easier!
Social Media Analytics
One of the biggest hurdles for social media managers is the inability to acquire data from social platforms to support your marketing decisions. This is the notion of “social listening.”
Creating content is useless if the content doesn’t reach your clients’ audience or drive more business for them. You need to make data-backed decisions for optimal results.
If you don’t currently use a social listening tool for business, now may be a good time to invest in one.
If you want to increase your social media manager salary, the best way to accomplish this is to take the data from KIOPI’s social media analytics dashboard and use the data for the most precise content creation possible.
Get a Better Social Media Manager Salary With KIOPI
Let’s recap!
In order to become a higher-earning social media manager, you’ll need to manage better social media campaigns. In order to ensure this happens, you’ll need to take the following actions:
- Determine your social media campaign’s goals using KIOPI’s social planner.
- Identify your target demographics and metrics using KIOPI’s analytics tool.
- Schedule your content across multiple platforms using KIOPI’s scheduling tool.
- Use KIOPI’s analytics tool, track your results and make changes where needed.
With KIOPI’s help, you can improve your social media management skills! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. We’d love to help you get started.