Content Manager Job Description: Salary, Qualifications

We all know that the success of any website depends on quality content. Indeed, “Content is King”, but who really is the engine behind every smart content planning? A Content Manager of course!

Content managers create, distribute, strategize, and promote content. In fact, they play the leading role in overall content marketing.

Maybe you’ve been dreaming of becoming a content manager, but you really don’t know how to get started. In this article, we have highlighted the various roles and responsibilities of a content manager, including their salary and qualifications. Read through to gain the most.

Who is a Content Manager?

A content manager oversees the development, distribution, and strategic efforts to create messaging to inform and delight audiences. This role usually involves knowledge of software, tools, and methods to help execute their job functions, people and project management, and an understanding of brand voice.

Content Manager Job Description and Title

A great job title typically includes a general term, level of experience, and any special requirements. The general term will optimize your job title to show up in a general search for jobs of the same nature.

The level of experience will help you attract the most qualified applicants by outlining the amount of responsibility and prior knowledge required.

And if your position is specialized, consider including the specialization in the job title as well. But avoid using internal titles, abbreviations, or acronyms to make sure people understand what your job posting is before clicking.

Below are examples of Content Manager job titles

  • Head of Content
  • Content Marketing Executive
  • Digital Content Manager
  • Senior Content Strategist
  • Content Marketing Manager (Strategic Partnerships)

#1. Plan Editorial Calendar

To be a truly effective content manager, you must plan content. The editorial calendar makes content planning easy.

This tool helps schedule all content activities, like the kind of content the company will produce, the blog article topics, the days content will be published, social media notifications, and emails. The editorial calendar helps the content manager manage the distribution of content across all channels.

For smaller organizations, the content manager may be responsible for writing, editing, and publishing all of the content.

For larger organizations, along with a marketing team, the content manager acts as the central figure in charge of organizing all the content and keeping others adherent to deadlines.

#2. They Work closely with Sales and Leadership

One of the most important roles of a content manager is the relationship with sales, leadership, and any customer-facing employee.

The content manager is only successful if they’re able to bridge the gap between the marketing department and other departments in the organization. This is especially true when having a close working relationship with the sales team.

3. Write & Edit Blog Articles

Writing and editing content is another important content manager job description. In fact, it is the strongest skill set a content manager should have. Even if you have multiple writers for your website, the content manager often produces a lot of the blog content themselves.

Content managers spend a large chunk of their time researching, writing, and editing high-quality blog articles that address the most important questions your prospects are asking.

4. Create Premium Content

It is the content manager job description to create premium content. In addition to writing blog articles aimed at attracting new visitors to a website, a content manager creates premium content to help convert those visitors into leads.

Premium contents are simply downloadable pieces of content such as checklists, tip sheets, and infographics, or longer, more detailed offerings like e-books and whitepapers.

Getting a new visitor to come to your website in search of an answer to a specific question is great, but getting them to share information about themselves in exchange for a premium offer will help you get more leads into your funnel.

5. Promote Content

It can take a lot of time for newly published content to start bringing in organic traffic. In fact, it can take several months to a year to get to the first page for your targeted keywords.

To help get eyes on the content earlier, content managers promote the content through various mediums as well. They decide which social media channels to promote content on.

A content manager should have an active Facebook community, Twitter followers, Instagram followers, or LinkedIn contacts to promote content on those channels.

It’s never best practice to use the same messaging across all the platforms, so a content manager will want to tailor posts with platform-specific language.

Content managers should also promote content through email. They send emails to the people who are already subscribed to your notifications whenever there is a new blog article. They can promote one piece at a time or do a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly email roundup of the most important pieces of content they’ve created since the last notification.

A content manager should become an active member across various forums that have solid followings. Reddit can be a great place to find questions people have that you have answers to, but make sure the answer is more than just a link to the article and that your response to the query gives a more comprehensive answer.

6. Repurpose Content

A great content manager identifies top-performing pieces of content and repackages them into other formats.

A blog article could be a great subject for a video, podcast, or infographic. A series of blog articles can be turned into an ebook.

Even a sentence or paragraph in an article can be turned into a tweet or meme.

A content manager should always be looking for ways to reach new audiences by catering to their varied learning preferences.

Some people prefer reading long content. Others short. Many want to watch content on YouTube. Others want to listen while driving or doing chores.

A content manager should know the audience’s preferences to help reach more people in the ways they appreciate them.

7. Refreshing Existing Content

One mistake businesses often make with their content marketing is they solely focus on creating new content.

I’m sure if you look closely, there’s a ton of articles a year or older that now have outdated information.

Rather than create a brand new article on that topic, a content manager should regularly review existing content and update it with the latest information and SEO best practices.

8. Obsess Over Metrics

A content manager should know how efficiently content marketing efforts are working. They should be obsessed with tracking and measuring the performance of all of the content they’ve created, from a high-level view down to the granular.

Using tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, Google Search Console, Google My Business, and SEMrush is essential for proper analysis and insight.

I’ll just quickly run down some important metrics:

  • Traffic
  • Traffic sources
  • Returning visitors
  • Traffic demographics
  • Device types
  • Keyword growth
  • First-page rankings
  • SERP Features
  • Page views
  • Time on page
  • Bounce rates
  • Social shares
  • Backlinks
  • Form submission rates
  • Email clicks
  • Contact list growth
  • Email sends
  • Email opens
  • MQLs
  • SQLs
  • Customers
  • Revenue

There are a ton of metrics to review, and a content manager should be familiar with and engrossed by all of them.

Content manager Qualifications and Skills

Content managers possess some required and preferred skills. This may include education, previous job experience, certifications, technical skills, and personality traits.

These skills may include:

  • Proven work experience as a Content manager
  • Hands-on experience with MS Office and WordPress
  • Basic technical knowledge of HTML and web publishing
  • Knowledge of SEO and web traffic metrics
  • Familiarity with social media
  • Excellent writing skills in English
  • Bachelor’s Degree preferred
  • Understanding of content marketing tactics, such as SEO, digital advertising, and social media marketing
  • Demonstrated ability to lead content marketing campaigns
  • Strong Google Analytics, WordPress, and Adobe Acrobat/Illustrator skills
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • 2+ years of experience in Content Marketing
  • Attention to detail
  • Good organizational and time-management skills
  • BSc degree in Journalism, Marketing or relevant field

See also: How to Move From Full-Time to Freelance: Ultimate Guide

How to Become a Content Manager

The content manager job description is one, however, you need to become a content manager before applying for a job.

1. Enroll in a certificate program for content marketing.

If you’re moving from another job into content management, regardless of your experience level or background, you should re-train yourself in content marketing to stay current. If you’re coming from an entirely unrelated job, you might want to consider taking digital marketing classes to get a basic understanding of the field.

Enroll in a course to improve your skills in content marketing. I suggest taking our certification course first. After ending, you will receive a certificate attesting to your understanding of content marketing, which you can also include on your LinkedIn page.

2. Consider higher education

Although it’s not necessarily required, having a degree can be a great starting point for a job in content management. Content managers usually hold a degree in marketing, communications, journalism, or a similar discipline.

Why? They give practitioners a solid foundation in media best practices and ensure that they are proficient in written communication and storytelling.

3. Learn about search engine optimization

When looking for a content management position, you should have a solid understanding of the idea of content marketing because it is often used interchangeably with search engine optimization, or SEO, at many companies.

If you’re unfamiliar with SEO best practices, you may create material that isn’t important to your industry or that just serves to stuff your corporate blog.

To locate “green space” for your company’s website, you’ll need to know how to conduct keyword research and employ the appropriate technologies. Keywords with less competition and a lot of opportunities to meet the wants of your audience are referred to as “green space.”

SEO is one of the integral parts and description of the content manager job role.

4. Create a webpage for yourself

Creating a personal website with content you have written and posted is the best way to get started with content management. This website may be for your brand, an idea for a business you’ve had for a while, or just for entertainment reasons. Whatever you build, you should become proficient in the process so that you can simply manage the website of your future employer when the time comes.

During this process, you will learn a few things, such as how to quickly build your website, manage content once it has been posted, and add media and content. You will also learn how to avoid a content management system.

When you apply for content management jobs, make use of the information you’ve gained from this process to provide intelligent responses to your interviewers.

MUST READ: 10 Proofreading Tips That Can Help You Be a Better Freelance Writer

5. To gain experience, think about freelancing

Apart from enhancing your brand with a website, freelancing is a great way to gain experience and expand your resume. Employers are looking for proof that you can execute their marketing. Thus, accepting freelance jobs and promoting the ones that work on your personal website will allow you to build experience and reputation.

You can locate contract or independent employment to help you build your resume by using websites like Media Bistro and Fiverr. The more work you can take on, the better, as each job will improve your confidence and sharpen your marketing abilities.

A content manager job description requires experience.

6. Apply for a marketing job

It’s time to start looking for work. Regrettably, most content managers have only a few years of experience in the marketing sector because this is a mid-level job. If you’re just starting out in marketing, you should work your way up to an entry-level job before advancing to content management.

Applying for a position as a marketing coordinator is your best choice. Typically, marketing coordinators oversee the daily tasks involved in managing marketing efforts. This entry-level job will familiarize you with all of the stakeholders who must be involved in the campaign and teach you how to run a successful one.

A job as a social media coordinator would be an additional entry-level choice. Curating material for a brand’s social media platforms is the responsibility of social media coordinators. You will still be working in the marketing area in this job, which will allow you to interact with other team members who are specialists in marketing.

Not every marketing job is made equal. In order to make sure you’re off to a good start, look for the following terms in the job posting:

  • Writing 
  • Blogging 
  • SEO

You should stay clear of a job advertisement if it appears overly general or if it discusses more conventional marketing strategies like advertising or live event marketing. Virtually all content managers’ work is in the digital marketing area.

7. Take on content management jobs within your role.

You should perform content management tasks in your entry-level job even though you aren’t officially a content manager yet. Could you offer to make a content calendar, for example, if your team is missing one? How about offering to upload the new material to the CMS each week?

As you prepare to apply for a real content manager job, it’s critical to keep developing your technical and practical content management skill set.

8. Apply for a content manager job.

It’s time to transition into content management after you’ve gained sufficient expertise, either by taking on more strategic roles within a marketing team or managing a content staff.

Don’t forget to leverage all your prior experience to show your ability to interact with an audience and your past content distribution skills. Take the lead by measuring the outcomes of your actions with numerical data. You may show your efficacy as a content manager with data such as content reach, organic traffic, and other engagement metrics.

SEe also: How To Land Premium Writing Gigs Even As A Novice

FAQS on content manager job description

What are the responsibilities of content manager?

Creates content to be presented on the website
Tracks web analytics to determine engagement levels with material
Plans and presents new material
Monitors and controls existing material
Implements changes to the website interface
Maintains content control software

What skills do you need to be a content manager?

Excellent leadership, marketing, and digital and interpersonal communication abilities are necessary for being a content manager. Digital marketing software, tools, and techniques with an emphasis on web content and SEO are also necessary.
Additional requirements for content managers may be as follows: familiarity with blogging and SEO writing

What does content manager full do?

In order to engage audiences and accomplish organizational goals, a content manager is a vital professional in the digital landscape. They are in charge of handling the development, optimization, and maintenance of content across several platforms.

Conclusion

A content manager is an embodiment of content marketing. They’re the ones responsible for and obsessed with ensuring a business succeeds in the digital world.

Are you gunning to become a content manager, or maybe you’re just a content writer seeking a job? Check out our article on how to Land Premium Writing Gigs even as a novice.