How to Build a Social Media Team for Any Brand (From 1 to Many)

“Our company is looking for an emoji-wielding poet with an award-winning X presence, a growth marketing guru, and an analytics expert with 300+ years’ experience in social media management to join our social media team. Skilled parasailer and Mongolian throat-singer strongly preferred…”

Sound familiar?

We’ve all seen it before: A lengthy job description for a social media team member that couldn’t possibly (and shouldn’t) fit into a single package.

A pesky assumption about social media management is that it’s a job for solely one person at a company, say a recent college grad, a “digital native,” or someone with greater than 500 followers on their personal social media.

In reality, brands that are doing impactful work on social media often have an entire team that makes success possible, with roles focused on specific functions—like content creation, measurement & analytics, or guiding the overarching strategy.

Marketing executives and decision makers face countless questions as they embark on the journey of building their brand’s social media team.

You might be wondering:

• How can my brand go from a team of one to a team of many?
• How can I level up our social media team to meet growing needs and aspirations?
• When is the right time to bring on new team members?
• Where should I look when hiring? Where’s the best social media talent?

But first, you’ll need a nuanced understanding of the many ways you can structure your social media team.

In this article we’ll cover:

• Social media roles: The 5 functional areas of a social media team
• Growing a social media team: The 6 maturity levels
• Hiring a social media team: Finding talent and outsourcing work

Ready to dive in?

Here are key tips on how to grow your social media team for brands of any size.

What Are the Different Roles on a Social Media Team?

Whether you’re a social media team of 1 or 101, it’s important to recognize that social media is not one job.

Think of roles on a social media team the same way you think about baking: You can substitute ingredients sometimes, but there are certain ingredients that make a recipe successful on a chemical level.

For example, you can’t make a sourdough starter without yeast. And while it’s pretty hard to find a good substitute for baking powder or baking soda, it’s relatively easy to swap butter for coconut oil, and so on.

Your social media team is the same way. You may need a community manager with a knack for copywriting before you need an analytics wizard. Without published content on social platforms, there won’t be any data to analyze!

Growing your social media team may also involve increased collaboration with design and marketing teams, depending on the way things are structured at your company.

Your social media team needs to possess a certain alchemy to crush your larger business goals. There are five core roles on any social media team, but remember—there is no one-size-fits-all approach!

These five functions might take the shape of individual roles at your company, or they can be grouped together based on someone’s capabilities and skill sets.

The Five Roles of a Social Media Team

Strategy

Your social media strategist is a manager who owns the company’s overarching social media strategy. They document a robust written strategy, get buy-in for important projects from decision-makers, and lobby with execs when they need new hires or team members.

Strategists can also be skilled contributors with a secondary skill set.

Maybe they have a background in content creation or growth marketing, but a strategist will need to possess a birds-eye view into how social media plays into the organization’s broader content strategy.

Community Management

Typically, a community manager is the person who is an expert at customer service, embodies your brand voice, and puts out little fires on social media as they arise. The ideal community manager is a people-person with a knack for creative problem-solving.

They’re on the front lines—responding to comments, answering DM’s, and keeping brand sentiment positive on all corners of the internet. The person posting Instagram stories on holidays or days off? That’s often your community manager. They’re the heart and soul of a social media team.

Content Production

Your content producer is typically an artistically-inclined team member. They create content that furthers the social strategy and are masters at your brand’s tone of voice.

Content producers are individual contributors; they might be a copywriter with a marketing and social background, or a designer who can create compelling visuals and nail your brand voice at the same time.

Other times, content production for social media teams can be outsourced to external agencies, trusted contractors, or vendors.

Content producers thrive in creative settings. They might be wordsmiths or experts in color theory. They know that the best social media teams think outside the box, but they also need to work closely with strategists to present seamless social media content.

Paid Advertising

A paid advertising lead often starts as a shared role with other departments. They might be a paid media manager responsible for other ad campaigns. They may also be plugged in to larger conversations about your company’s broader marketing efforts (usually, when demand generation is discussed).

For example, if cross-functional teams don’t talk, you might never know your Creative Director is launching new subway ad creative for an out-of-home campaign. Paid advertising on social media is a huge opportunity to create synergetic brand experiences.

Measurement & Analysis

Social media analytics and measurement tends to be the role of an individual contributor to your team. They know all the tricks for spotting bot traffic, tracking engagement on your latest posts, and testing.

They might have a penchant for Excel and reporting, but most importantly, analytics people know a pattern when they see one.

Some companies outsource data and analytics to tracking platforms, but this depends on your overall business goals and budget.

Growing a Social Media Team: The 6 Maturity Levels

Your company is bound to go through changes faster than you can keep up, especially if you’re starting from scratch with your social media. However, it’s never wise to grow your social media team before you’re ready to scale up.

The right time to hire will depend on where your company falls on the social media marketing maturity map.

We’ve mapped out six stages (or levels) of social media teams based on where they fall on the Sculpt Social Media Maturity Map.

For example, a Level 0 company would have no social media presence whatsoever, while a Level 5 business would be recognizable by their innovative social presence.

(There’s a reason we all love what the social teams at Wendy’s or Glossier are doing.)

When your company increases their offerings, launches a new product, or integrates a new marketing channel to their distribution strategy, your SM team needs to be able to keep up.

More mature teams will have team members that are specialists with experience as problem solvers, while early stage brands may be fine with a generalist who can wear many hats for their social platforms.

Different Stages of a Social Media Team

So, on a scale of 0 to 5, where does your company fall on our Social Media Marketing Maturity Map?

Level 0: No One Owns Social

You’ve gotta start somewhere.

That’s Level 0 on our social media maturity map. Without anyone to own your social channels or lift the project off the ground floor, social media is probably bundled in with other marketing projects. You might be an early-stage business or a company that’s a little behind the times. (That’s okay! It happens.)

Level 0 social media teams probably aren’t even a team yet; they may be a few scattered stakeholders who want to see social media marketing take off for your brand.

Level 1: One Team Member Manages Social Here and There

When you hit the next level of building your social media team, it tends to be a one-person effort. There’s probably an in-house marketer juggling getting content distributed, tracked, and measured across a dozen marketing channels. They might only devoting a few hours a week (or a month, *shudder*) to one or two social channels.

Alternatively, a Level 1 could be an external resource keeping a pulse check on social, but your brand likely wouldn’t have consistent storytelling, measurement, or strategy at this stage of the marketing maturity map.

Level 2: One Team Member Manages Social Part-Time

When you unlock Level 2, your marketing team likely has one part-time marketer managing just social, or social media takes up about 20 hours of an in-house marketer’s time.

Because there’s more time spent creating content and managing your online community, you’ll notice your social media teammates getting spread thin. There’s so much to do if you’re actively building multiple channels for optimal performance.

This level of marketing is frequently responding to crises and chasing their own tail to stay ahead of new trends; plus, getting bogged down by day-to-day execution means there’s no freedom or time to experiment.

With your current team’s capabilities, it might be better to commit to doing less but doing it well. As Ron Swanson once said, “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”

Level 3: Dedicate Social Media Manager Owns Social with Support

Congrats—you made it to Level 3! Take a moment to celebrate this accomplishment.

Level 3 indicates that you’ve got at least one full-time social media manager and perhaps a small army of part-time specialists to help you. This might be a copywriter you have on contract, a photographer, or even a summer intern.

The benefits of being Level 3 are that your social media marketing will become more consistent. Your followers and community may already be more engaged because you’re posting on a regular schedule. You may even have more cohesive storytelling and an ironed-out brand voice by this point.

However, the struggle Level 3’s run into time and time again is that decision-makers are expecting your team to run when they’re just beginning to crawl.

This might lead to an overwhelmed team, tight deadlines and frustrated contractors, and a feeling like you’re always playing catch-up with your social media.

Level 4: Head of Social Manages a Growing, Full-Time Team

Level 4 is where things start to get really interesting.

You’ve got your strategy and processes more defined than ever before, with at least one Director of Social Media or high-level strategist guiding (and praising!) your efforts. You’ll have anywhere from one to four full-time social media managers implementing the day-to-day.

By Level 4, you’ve proven to leadership that a robust, consistent social media strategy boosts engagement, maintains positive brand sentiment, and drives sales. But with great power comes great responsibility, and the C-Suite will want your team to one-up themselves time and again to stay top dog.

You’ll have more time and manpower at Level 4 of your social media marketing to experiment, so you can throw ideas on the digital wall and see what sticks.

At this point, your team should have defined roles with growth opportunities in place. Level 4 is the perfect time to nurture talent, encourage ambition and creativity, and laser in on what’s working.

Level 5: Globally Distributed Team with Multiple Branches

Finally, a social media team operating at Level 5 is a well-oiled, global machine. They’re getting attention for their innovations, becoming trend-setters in the space, and never losing sight of their brand mission. Their social media strategy is their Bible.

Even when you build a great social media team that soars to Level 5 of the marketing maturity map, there’s always room to improve processes. It can get crowded at the top, and social media teams without clearly-defined roles can grow bloated or inefficient. Experienced teams should stay on top of emerging trends and platforms and emphasize life-long learning.

How Can You Level Up Your Social Media Team?

Now that you know the core characteristics of each level, you should be able to identify your company somewhere along the 5 levels.

Still need more clarity? Take the quiz to find out.

As you consider the future, you can use the SM marketing maturity map to make decisions about what your social media team needs to do next to succeed.

For example, a Level 3 team probably doesn’t have a Director-level hire that can drive strategy and affect change at a structural level, which keeps them from advancing to Level 4.

So, what are the characteristics you should look for in your next social media hire?

We’re so glad you asked.

Hiring Your Social Media Team

Hiring is a key part of building a great team, and retaining talent should also be one of your top priorities. Level up your social media team with the right talent to achieve your best results.

How to Find and Hire Great Social Media Talent

What you want in a Director of Social Media is going to differ drastically from an entry-level social media role, so you’ll want to focus your job description on the right elements of the job.

Who you hire should depend on what you need

Your first team hires need to be talented, all-hands-on-deck teammates who can work across functions—for instance, they might double as a content creator and community manager.

If you’re searching for a managerial role, you’ll want to make sure they are excellent communicators with the potential to be a strong mentor.

If you have an entry-level hire who started as the first member of your social media team, are they itching for more responsibility? Does an internal promotion make more sense than outsourcing a new manager?

The answers to these questions will vary greatly based on your company’s individual circumstances.

Another question that’s highly specific to your individual brand’s needs: Are you looking for someone with a B2C or a B2B background?

While certain social media marketing best practices remain the same, if you’re a B2B brand looking to expand your social media team, someone with experience building and/or executing B2B social media strategies might be a better fit than a generalist with a B2C background.

Where to look for social media talent

There are many ways to find talented social media creators and strategists—and it’s no surprise that many of these methods are online.

Here are a few:

• Subscribe to newsletters from thought-leaders on the next big thing in social, or send cold outreach to social media managers whose work you find compelling. Use groups on X or Slack oriented around social media marketing. Broader digital marketing groups are also a great way to find talent with experience in other marketing areas, especially if you want to stay a nimble, small team.
• Ask your network for referrals to talented professionals they enjoy working with or consultants they swear by.
• Use standard job boards and hiring channels like LinkedIn and Indeed to widen your search.
• Use specialized job boards and hiring platforms like Toptal or Braintrust to search for specific, experienced candidates.
• Take a chance on someone with experience that’s not particularly tied to social, especially if it’s a part-time opportunity. Social media expertise isn’t innate; it’s learned. Experience is the only teacher.

How to Work with Social Media Agencies to Offset Work

One of the biggest lessons in life is knowing how to delegate when your plate is too full.

In a “do it all” culture, we can lose sight that resources exist to lessen our workload and make our lives easier. One way to do that is by onboarding a social media agency to fill gaps in your team.

Short or long term support

Be honest when you’re thinking through a scope for an external agency. You’ll need to decide whether it’s a short-term solution or a long-term partnership, which can greatly impact the scope of work. If you plan on making a full-time hire that would do the work you’ve set aside for agency, consider a short SOW that can tide you over till you’ve hired and onboarded your new teammate.

What to outsource to an agency

Not sure what you should keep in-house and what your agency partners can take off your plate?

Try thinking about it in terms of the five social media functions we discussed earlier. Which of these areas might you need help in?

• Strategy: Struggling to level up or need a fresh direction? Get an outside perspective on your social media strategy. In a strategy engagement, an agency can audit your program, analyze opportunities with a wider lens, and provide strategic and tactical recommendations for your in-house social media team to execute.
• Community Management: Constant social listening, and community engagement can be overwhelming and time consuming, but you also don’t want to leave potential and current customers on read. An agency partner can do the heavy lifting and help keep your online community happy and engaged.
• Content Production: “Content is king” gets thrown around a lot, and it’s true, but pumping out quality, consistent content can be a drain on your team. Whether you just need targeted assistance on a few projects or need a whole new asset library, an agency can help you create unique content that adds real value.
• Paid Advertising: Paid social is often your first point of contact with a potential customer, so it’s important that you get it right. But there are a lot of moving pieces that go into that,  especially if you don’t have a dedicated team member to take on paid social. That’s where an agency comes in — to build, manage, and track your campaigns and net you results.
• Measurement & Analysis: Getting into the nitty gritty of KPIs, CPLs, ROI, and every other analytics acronym you can think of takes an eye for detail and, more importantly, time which your time might not have. Spot issues before they become problems, track growth, and optimize everything with an agency partner that can handle all of the data and analytics for you.

What to look for in an agency partner

Always choose external agencies based on their proven expertise and experience. This is another great opportunity to ask your network about the kinds of social media agencies they like to work with.

Not to brag, but we’re a B2B social media agency and we really know our stuff. (Ok, maybe we’re bragging a little bit. 😉)

Tools and Resources to Help Your Team Succeed

It takes a village to raise a social media powerhouse, and that doesn’t just mean a village of people. Building your social media team requires helpful technology, ongoing training, and the latest tools.

Mental health resources are also critically important for your staff. You might want to invest in apps like Headspace or Shine for your team, which can provide opportunities for meditation and positive reinforcement. Social media teams are often online outside of normal work hours. Acknowledging this initiative and the toll it can take is critically important.

Each year, new social media platforms are invented—sometimes taking the world by storm, sometimes fading away. Social media teams are dedicated to those channels long after the buzz dies down because of the opportunities they provide to engage deeply with customers. That’s why one of the biggest things you can do to keep your social media team invested is to invest in them.

For example, you can set aside a certain budget amount for emerging platforms or technologies or put funds toward paid media. Platforms for reporting and analytics are ever-changing, so you’ll want to regularly audit your technologies to ensure your team is using tools with the most accurate data.

Finally, adequate and consistent funding can cement your team’s value in your organization. You’ll also want to look into ongoing professional development, conferences, and courses to invest in your employees’ long-term growth.

What’s Next for Growing Your Social Media Team

With a motivated, empowered team at the helm of your social media, your brand can reach more consumers and make a bigger splash in an already-crowded digital ecosystem. Even if you’re sitting pretty at Level 5 today, the social world is ever-changing and your business needs to be prepared for anything.

Whether you’re making your first dedicated social media hire or onboarding a nimble social media agency that has grown audiences and revenue for B2B companies since 2012 (hey, that sounds like us!), we’re here to help you level up.