With the employment sector ever-evolving, many job seekers are looking to enhance their skill set by pursuing other careers that offer experience beyond what they studied in school or earned through valid certifications. Whether they want to make a career pivot due to general interest in another field, change career paths due to job layoffs and scarcity, or increase their income, there are many reasons why someone may change their job title throughout various stages of their career.
Specifically in the marketing sector, job seekers can pursue roles in PR and brand management, advertising, social media, SEO, communications, or the marketing specialist position across a variety of industries. Other roles can be pursued, such as becoming a content manager, an integral part of the marketing and digital spaces.
Content managers are essentially at the forefront of managing content for brands and businesses, and they are responsible for ensuring content across a business’ website, such as with social media platforms and mobile apps. Content managers work hand in hand with other creatives, like copywriting and design teams, to align on brand content before it goes live and after the fact, when making updates or posting new content on the web.
Being a content manager also comes with the unique responsibility of understanding a brand’s audience, coupled with other skills such as business management and brand development, so that they can deliver content through all stages of the content development process, from inception to completion and publishing. Content managers must also possess a unique set of skills, ranging from brand strategy and strategic planning and development to leading and managing a team and having keen insight into how different digital management systems work. They must also have strong communication, organization, and time management skills, and a solid background and understanding of how content management fits within the broader picture of a business’ marketing and digital operations.
Becoming a content manager can be a rewarding career for those who enjoy creative environments and have a keen eye for detail and organizational management. Check out more info below about how to become a content manager, the additional skills they require, and how much money they can generally make throughout their career.
Content Managers Role Responsibilities
Content managers manage content for brands and businesses. They’re often tasked with managing a brand’s content across various channels and formats, including the business’s website or blog and its social media accounts, such as Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter). Content managers are generally categorized as part of the marketing sector, as they often work with a business’s marketing and creative teams to oversee the entire content development and publishing process. Content managers may also be tasked with creating and developing content on their own that’s later featured on a brand’s website or digital platforms.
In their role, content managers must make sure that content remains cohesive, up-to-date, and aligned with a brand’s guidelines and vision. Content managers may make changes or updates to a website or social media account in accordance with pre-established content management guidelines and ideas, which may also be coordinated with a business’ marketing and development creative teams. When managing and updating a website, content managers often work in the backend of a business’ website or blog to make necessary changes or revisions to existing content and manage content overall.
As part of their work, Content managers frequently use content management systems like WordPress or Squarespace, as well as e-commerce platforms for direct-to-consumer businesses like Shopify and BigCommerce. In the backend of a business’ website, content managers may add or modify page sections, such as home or landing page copy, product copy and descriptions, website layouts and images, and SEO-related changes and implementations.
Before adding these changes, content managers must generally coordinate with the team they’re part of to finalize them, making sure that team members are aligned and that they receive final approval. Content managers must also remain aware of a website’s functionality so it runs smoothly and, in this case, may work with a business’s information technology (IT) and engineering teams to ensure it does.
Content Management Skills
Being a content manager requires a specific set of skills that prove useful for the role. As outlined above, content managers must be organized and have strong communication, analytical, and critical thinking skills so that they can know and understand how to communicate with the team(s) they’re working with effectively and be able to manage, organize, evaluate, and make a record of how content is managed and any areas of improvement where necessary.
In terms of hard skills, content managers must also have a strong understanding of digital platforms and how they work, since they spend their time managing content on them. They must also have strong writing and editing skills when updating or publishing web and social media content and copy, as well as have SEO knowledge for website management and presentation.
It’s also helpful for content managers to have a keen visual eye when managing aspects of a content’s layout and design. Since they work across various digital systems, it’s also helpful for content managers to have strong technical skills and to understand how to troubleshoot and resolve technical issues that arise when managing them.
Content Manager Wages and Salaries
Being a content manager comes with a reasonable salary that can increase as you move up the ranks within a company. ZipRecruiter estimates the national average hourly wage for a content manager is $39 per hour, which equates to roughly $75,000 per year if working full-time.
The hourly wage and total salary of a content manager are contingent upon several factors, such as the specific position title held, whether a junior/entry-level or senior-level role, and the role’s required education and experience, which generally play a part in being able to earn a higher income over time, the more skills and expertise that are learned.
Wages may also fluctuate depending on the state where the company is located or where it is hiring employees, such as for remote workers residing in different states with differing pay rates and salaries.
Content Manager Career Paths
Content managers don’t always follow the same career paths. Some who already know they want to become content managers before pursuing higher education may go on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in marketing, advertising, or communications. Others may decide to take certification courses from accredited organizations and institutions that they can include on their resumes, especially if they initially pursued a different career path and now want to become a content manager.
After obtaining a Bachelor’s degree, some may go on to pursue their Master’s in fields such as Finance or Business Administration, to build upon and enhance the knowledge and skill set they acquired from their Bachelor’s degree, while learning more about the business side of brand and content management and business operations as a whole. Content managers may apply for roles at companies in the healthcare, technology, fashion, or publishing fields, all of which require content managers to manage content across their digital channels, internal systems, and platforms.
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