Social media manager job description templates for small businesses: 6 variants with pay benchmarks, overtime rules, and account access terms. Free DOCX.
Social Media Manager Job Description Templates for Small Businesses
6 free templates for the businesses hiring without a marketing department: standard in-house, small business, head of social, e-commerce, B2B, and part-time. Download as DOCX.
The first social media manager job description I ever wrote was two hundred words long and completely useless. It listed platforms, asked for creativity, and said nothing about budget, approval rights, or who the person answered to. We interviewed eleven people and every one of them described a different job back to us, because we had described a different job to each of them.
The problem is that manager means four incompatible things in this role. It can mean a function owner with no direct reports, a head of social running a team, an execution role handed a nicer title, or a capped part-time engagement. Those four have different pay bands, different candidates, and different answers to the overtime question.
Social is also not a side channel any more. The Pew Research Center survey of US adults conducted in the first half of 2025 found 84 percent use YouTube, 71 percent Facebook, 50 percent Instagram, 32 percent TikTok, and 25 percent LinkedIn. At FirstHR we write hiring templates for businesses without an HR or marketing department, and this is one of the roles where a vague posting costs the most.
TL;DR
A social media manager owns strategy, content, community, and usually the paid budget for a company’s public accounts. No BLS occupation carries that exact title, so benchmark against market research analysts and marketing specialists at a $78,760 median (OEWS, May 2025). The manager title alone never creates an overtime exemption. Six templates below, downloadable as DOCX.
What a Social Media Manager Owns
A social media manager owns a company’s public voice end to end: the strategy, the content calendar, the production, the community, the paid budget, and the reporting. Everything else about the role is a variation on how much of that list one person carries alone.
At a company with a marketing team, the manager sets direction and reviews work. At a small business, the same person writes the plan on Monday, shoots the video on Tuesday, and answers the comments on Wednesday. Both are real versions of the job. Only one of them belongs in your posting.
Manager of a channel
The common case
No direct reports, but full ownership of strategy, calendar, budget, and voice. The title says manager because the person manages a function, not people. This is the version most small businesses are actually hiring.
Manager of people
Head of social
Two or more direct reports, hiring input, and a real budget line. This is the only version that reaches the executive exemption, and it belongs at a company with enough volume to keep several people busy.
Manager in name only
Watch this one
Executes a calendar someone else approves, with no budget and no authority to publish without sign-off. That is a coordinator or a specialist role wearing a manager title, and it is usually non-exempt.
Fractional or part-time
Fixed scope
A capped weekly commitment with a written scope. Almost always a non-exempt hourly employee unless you are engaging a genuine agency or freelancer who serves other clients and controls their own methods.
Write the Scope in Numbers, Not Adjectives
Candidates cannot price a job described as fast-paced and creative. They can price a job described as four channels, twelve posts a week, a $4,000 monthly ad budget, one freelance editor, and no direct reports. Numbers also protect you later, because the exempt or non-exempt decision rests on the duties actually performed, and a posting written in numbers is the record of what those duties were supposed to be.
Manager, or Just the Title?
The honest test is whether the person can decide something that costs money without asking. If they control a budget line, approve creative, and publish without pre-clearance, the manager title is accurate. If none of those are true, you are hiring a specialist or a coordinator and calling it a manager.
That distinction is not pedantry. It sets the pay band, it sets who applies, and it sets the overtime answer. Inflating the title to make an offer more attractive tends to produce a candidate who arrives expecting authority they do not have, which is one of the shorter paths to a first-year departure.
Level
Decides
Typical reports
Usual classification
Social media assistant
Nothing without approval
None
Non-exempt hourly
Social media coordinator
Scheduling and routine replies
None
Non-exempt hourly
Social media specialist
Execution within an agreed plan
None
Usually non-exempt
Social media manager
Strategy, calendar, budget, voice
None to one
Depends on the duties test
Head of social
Team, budget, crisis response, hiring
Two or more
Exempt if the tests are met
If the version you need sits below manager, we have the postings for it. The social media specialist templates and the coordinator templates are written for execution roles that work inside a plan someone else approved.
For a support-level first hire who assists rather than owns, the social media assistant templates are the closest fit. Picking the honest level costs you nothing and saves a mismatched hire six months later.
What Belongs in the Posting
A social media manager posting has to do four jobs: describe the scope in numbers, state the authority boundary, protect you legally, and give a strong candidate a reason to reply. Most postings do the first badly and skip the second entirely.
The scope section most postings skip
Which channels this role owns, listed by name
Posting cadence per channel per week
The paid budget in dollars, and who controls it
Whether production is in-house, freelance, or yours
The authority section that filters applicants
What can be published without pre-approval
What always goes to a named person first
Who approves creative and who owns brand voice
Whether the role has direct reports, and how many
The parts that protect you
FLSA classification stated honestly on the posting
Disclosure and endorsement expectations
Account ownership and access terms
Equal opportunity statement
The parts that win the hire
Pay or a good-faith range
How success is measured at 30, 90, and 365 days
Who the role reports to and works alongside
A named person and a real deadline to apply
The single most common omission is the paid budget. Candidates use it to infer seniority faster than any other line, and leaving it out reads as a business that has not decided whether social is a real investment. Our general guide to writing a job description covers the underlying structure, and the wider hiring templates library has the rest of the roles.
6 Social Media Manager Job Description Templates to Download
Download all six as one file or copy them individually. Each follows the same structure: company overview, position summary, channels and scope, key responsibilities, required qualifications, a classification note, account access terms, an equal opportunity statement, and how to apply. The bracketed fields are the only parts you change.
Download All 6 Social Media Manager Job Description Templates
Standard in-house, small business, head of social, e-commerce, B2B, and part-time. All in one download.
Standard, In-House
Owns the whole channel
The general in-house version, with channel scope, budget authority, escalation rules, and a success timeline written into the posting.
Small Business
First marketing hire
For the business with no marketing department. Broad, hands-on, and explicit about what the role is not, so nobody arrives expecting a team.
Senior / Head of Social
Manages people and budget
For a social function with direct reports, decision rights, crisis ownership, and a leadership reporting line.
E-commerce / DTC
Carries a revenue target
For consumer brands where social is a revenue line: paid budget, creative testing, creator contracts, and endorsement compliance.
B2B
Pipeline, not followers
For long buying cycles: executive ghostwriting, employee advocacy, and reporting that connects social to pipeline instead of impressions.
Part-Time / Fractional
Capped hours, capped scope
For a fixed weekly commitment, with the scope boundary and the contractor warning stated in the posting itself.
Template 1: Social Media Manager (Standard, In-House)
The general in-house version, with channel scope, budget authority, escalation rules, and a 30, 90, and 365 day success timeline written into the posting itself.
Social Media Manager Job Description (Standard, In-House)
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Marketing Director / Head of Growth / Owner]
Direct reports: [None / a coordinator / a contractor and a designer]
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: [Exempt / Non-exempt] (decide using the classification note)
Compensation: $_ per year
Location: [On-site / Hybrid / Remote]
ABOUT [COMPANY NAME]
[Company Name] is a [industry] company in [City, State] with [team size
description] serving [customer description]. Social is [our largest channel /
one of three channels we invest in], and we are hiring a Social Media Manager to
own it end to end.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Social Media Manager owns our presence on [list the channels], sets the
content strategy against agreed business goals, produces or commissions the
work, manages the paid social budget, and reports on what it returned. This is
an ownership role, not an execution role: you decide what we say, and you are
•Posting cadence: [number] posts per week per channel
•Paid social budget: $________ per [month / quarter], managed by this role
•Community volume: roughly [number] comments and messages per week
•Production support: [in-house designer / freelance editor / you produce it]
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Own the social strategy: channel mix, content pillars, and quarterly goals
tied to [awareness, lead volume, revenue, retention]
•Build and run the content calendar, including approvals and publishing
•Produce or direct short-form video, static creative, and copy
•Manage the paid social budget, targeting, creative testing, and pacing
•Run community management: comments, direct messages, and reviews, within our
published response times
•Brief and manage [freelancers, agencies, creators, influencers]
•Report monthly on reach, engagement, click-through, cost per result, and
pipeline or revenue contribution
•Own escalation: know what you can answer, and what goes to [name] first
•Keep endorsement and disclosure practices compliant on every paid placement
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years running social accounts for a business, not personal accounts
•A portfolio of accounts you grew, with the numbers and the timeframe
•Hands-on paid social experience with a budget of at least $________ per month
•Comfortable on camera or directing someone who is
•Strong written judgment: you can write in our voice without a style police
•[Bachelor's degree preferred / not required: choose one and mean it]
HOW WE MEASURE SUCCESS
•30 days: audit complete, channel plan approved, publishing on cadence
•90 days: [metric] up [target], reporting running without being asked
•12 months: [primary business goal] delivered from social
CLASSIFICATION NOTE (read before posting)
The word manager in the title does not decide overtime status. Under the FLSA,
the executive exemption requires managing a recognized department and directing
the work of two or more full-time employees. The administrative exemption
requires office work directly related to business operations plus the exercise
of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance. A social
media manager who sets strategy and controls a real budget can meet the
administrative test. One who executes a calendar someone else approves usually
cannot, and is non-exempt: hourly, with overtime past forty hours in a week.
Either way the salary basis test applies. This is general information, not legal
advice.
ACCOUNT ACCESS AND BRAND VOICE
All accounts, business manager assets, and ad accounts remain company property.
Access is granted through the company password vault and removed on the last
day. Recovery methods stay attached to a company phone number and a company
email address, not a personal one.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per year, [bonus structure], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and three accounts you
ran, including the numbers you moved.
Template 2: Small Business Social Media Manager
For the business with no marketing department, where the hire is the department. It includes a deliberate section on what the role is not, so nobody arrives expecting a team to delegate to.
Small Business Social Media Manager Job Description
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION (SMALL BUSINESS, FIRST MARKETING HIRE)
Business: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Owner / General Manager]
Direct reports: None
Employment type: Full-time [or 30 hours per week]
FLSA status: Non-exempt (hourly, overtime-eligible) unless the administrative
test is clearly met
Compensation: $_ per [hour / year]
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Business Name] is a [industry] business with [team size description]. There is
no marketing department. You will be the marketing department for social, which
means you decide, you make, and you post, with the owner as your only approver.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Social Media Manager runs every social channel for [Business Name]: the
plan, the content, the posting, the replies, and the small paid budget. The job
is deliberately broad and deliberately hands-on. If you want a team under you,
this is not the role.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Plan and publish [number] posts per week across [channels]
•Shoot and edit short-form video on a phone, on site, during business hours
•Write captions in our voice and reply to every comment and message
•Manage a paid budget of $________ per month and report what it returned
•Ask customers for reviews and respond to the ones we get, without offering
anything in exchange for a positive rating
•Coordinate with [staff] to capture real work as it happens
•Send the owner a one-page monthly summary: what we posted, what worked, what
we are changing
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years running social for a business, agency, or client roster
•Can produce publishable video and static creative without a design team
•Comfortable working independently with weekly, not daily, direction
•Reliable on-site availability [days] to capture content
•[No degree required: subject to the standard you actually apply]
WHAT THIS ROLE IS NOT
This is not a strategy-only role, and it is not a posting-only role. You will
write the plan and then execute it yourself. There is no one to hand the camera
to.
CLASSIFICATION NOTE
Treat this role as non-exempt unless you can genuinely say the primary duty is
office work directly related to business operations with the exercise of
discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance. A first
marketing hire who is mostly producing and posting content is doing production
work, and production work is non-exempt regardless of the title on the offer
letter. Non-exempt means hourly, accurate time records, and overtime past forty
hours in a week, including the hours spent answering comments at night. This is
general information, not legal advice.
ACCOUNT ACCESS
Accounts stay in the business name with the owner as primary admin. Access is
issued and revoked through [our password manager], and two-factor recovery stays
on a business phone number.
EEO STATEMENT
[Business Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per [hour / year], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and links to work you
made yourself.
Still Using Spreadsheets for Onboarding?
Automate documents, training assignments, task management, and track onboarding progress in real time.
Template 3: Senior Social Media Manager / Head of Social
For a social function with direct reports, a budget line, and crisis ownership. This is the only variant that reliably reaches the executive exemption, and it includes an explicit decision rights section.
Senior Social Media Manager / Head of Social Job Description
SENIOR SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER (HEAD OF SOCIAL) JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [VP Marketing / CMO / Founder]
Direct reports: [number] ([coordinator, video editor, community manager])
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: Exempt (executive or administrative; see classification note)
Compensation: $_ per year plus [bonus / equity]
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Company Name] is hiring a Senior Social Media Manager to lead the social
function: a team of [number], a budget of $_ per year, and full authority
over what the brand says in public.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Senior Social Media Manager sets social strategy for the company, manages
and develops the social team, controls the paid social budget, and is the
accountable owner when something goes wrong in public. This role hires, sets
priorities, and says no.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Set the annual social strategy and defend it to leadership with numbers
•Manage [number] direct reports: hiring, one-on-ones, reviews, and development
•Own a paid social budget of $________ and the allocation across channels
•Approve creative and copy, and hold final say on brand voice
•Build and maintain the escalation and crisis response plan
•Own creator and influencer partnerships, including contracts and disclosure
requirements
•Report to leadership on contribution to [pipeline, revenue, retention]
•Partner with [PR, product, customer support, legal] on anything public
•Own the platform relationships and the tooling budget
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years in social, including [number] years managing people
•Track record of owning a budget of at least $________ per year
•Experience handling at least one public incident from first comment to close
•Fluency in attribution: you can explain what social returned and what it did
not
•Comfortable presenting to [the leadership team / the board]
DECISION RIGHTS
•Publishes without pre-approval: [scope]
•Requires approval from [name]: [pricing claims, legal topics, layoffs, crisis]
•Owns the budget line up to $________ per decision
CLASSIFICATION NOTE
A head of social who manages a recognized department and customarily and
regularly directs the work of two or more full-time employees, with real weight
given to their hiring and firing recommendations, meets the executive exemption
if the salary basis and salary level tests are also met. A senior social lead
without direct reports may still be exempt under the administrative test if the
primary duty involves discretion and independent judgment on matters of
significance, which budget authority and final creative approval tend to
support. Do not assume the exemption from the title alone. This is general
information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per year, [bonus target], [equity], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and one example of a
strategy you set, executed, and measured.
Template 4: E-commerce / DTC Social Media Manager
For consumer brands where social carries a revenue target: paid budget management, creative testing cadence, creator contracts, and the endorsement rules written into the brief rather than bolted on later.
E-commerce / DTC Social Media Manager Job Description
E-COMMERCE / DTC SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Head of Growth / Owner]
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: [Exempt / Non-exempt] (see classification note)
Compensation: $_ per year plus [performance bonus]
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Company Name] sells [product category] direct to consumers at [store URL].
Social is where our customers find us and where they decide. We are hiring a
Social Media Manager who treats the channel as a revenue line, not a brand
exercise.
POSITION SUMMARY
The E-commerce Social Media Manager owns organic and paid social with a direct
revenue target. You build the creative pipeline, run the testing program, manage
creator partnerships, and report on return on ad spend alongside the softer
numbers.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Own social revenue and return on ad spend against a target of [number]
•Run a continuous creative testing program: [number] new concepts per week
•Manage the paid social budget of $________ per month across [channels]
•Build the creator and affiliate pipeline, including briefs and contracts
•Set up and maintain shoppable formats, product tagging, and catalog feeds
•Coordinate content around [launches, restocks, seasonal promotions]
•Manage user-generated content rights and permissions in writing
•Handle customer service escalations that arrive through social
•Report weekly on spend, revenue, and the creative that drove it
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years running paid and organic social for an e-commerce brand
•Demonstrated ownership of a monthly ad budget of at least $________
•Fluent in the analytics stack: [platform ads managers, store analytics, an
attribution tool]
•Understands the rules on endorsements, testimonials, and reviews, and works
inside them
•Fast creative judgment and a bias toward shipping tests
COMPLIANCE NOTE FOR CONSUMER BRANDS
This role touches endorsements, testimonials, and reviews, which are regulated.
Material connections between the brand and anyone endorsing it must be disclosed
clearly and conspicuously. Fake reviews, reviews written by insiders without
disclosure, and incentives conditioned on a positive rating are prohibited under
the Federal Trade Commission rule on consumer reviews and testimonials. Build
those rules into the creator brief, not into a training you do later. This is
general information, not legal advice.
CLASSIFICATION NOTE
Budget authority and independent decisions about spend allocation support the
administrative exemption. A role limited to executing a media plan set by
someone else does not, and should be classified non-exempt with hours tracked.
This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per year, [bonus tied to revenue or return on ad spend]
To apply, email __ with your resume and the ad account
results you are proudest of.
Template 5: B2B Social Media Manager
For long buying cycles: executive ghostwriting, employee advocacy, and reporting that connects social activity to pipeline. Pair it with the digital marketing specialist templates if demand generation is a separate hire.
B2B Social Media Manager Job Description
B2B SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Marketing Director / Demand Generation Lead / Founder]
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: [Exempt / Non-exempt] (see classification note)
Compensation: $_ per year
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Company Name] sells [product or service] to [buyer persona] at [company type].
Our buying cycle runs [length], involves [number] people, and starts long before
anyone fills in a form. We are hiring a Social Media Manager to build the
audience that shortens it.
POSITION SUMMARY
The B2B Social Media Manager builds demand on [LinkedIn and the channels our
buyers actually use], runs the founder and executive presence, turns subject
matter expertise into publishable content, and connects social activity to
pipeline rather than to follower counts.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Own the company presence on [LinkedIn, X, YouTube, industry communities]
•Ghostwrite and manage [founder / executive] accounts with their input
•Run an employee advocacy program: enablement, assets, and a policy that
respects what employees are legally free to say on their own accounts
•Turn [webinars, customer interviews, product releases] into content series
•Manage paid social for [demand generation, event registration, hiring]
•Coordinate with sales on social selling and inbound response times
•Report on reach, engaged accounts, pipeline influenced, and cost per
opportunity
•Support [recruiting and employer brand] content when asked
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years in B2B social or content marketing
•Can hold a technical conversation with [engineers, clinicians, operators] and
write from it
•Experience ghostwriting for executives without losing their voice
•Understands pipeline reporting and does not confuse impressions with demand
•[Bachelor's degree preferred / not required]
WHAT WE WILL NOT ASK YOU TO DO
•Chase vanity metrics that do not connect to pipeline
•Post engagement bait that embarrasses the brand
•Publish anything about a customer without written permission
CLASSIFICATION NOTE
A B2B social role that sets strategy, ghostwrites for leadership, and makes
independent judgment calls on what the company says in public has a reasonable
case for the administrative exemption, provided the salary level and salary
basis tests are met. A role that publishes a calendar written by someone else is
non-exempt. Decide on the duties actually performed, and revisit the decision if
the job changes. This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per year, [bonus structure], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and two posts you wrote
for someone else.
Template 6: Part-Time / Fractional Social Media Manager
For a fixed weekly commitment with a written scope boundary and the contractor warning stated plainly. If community moderation is the larger half of the job, the community manager templates fit better.
Part-Time / Fractional Social Media Manager Job Description
PART-TIME / FRACTIONAL SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION
Business: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Owner / Operations Manager]
Employment type: Part-time, [number] hours per week [or fractional engagement]
[Business Name] does not need a full-time social hire yet, but the accounts
still need an owner. This is a part-time role with a fixed weekly commitment and
a clear scope, not an open-ended promise of availability.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Part-Time Social Media Manager runs [channels] within an agreed [number]
hours per week: planning, producing, publishing, replying, and a short monthly
report. Scope is capped on purpose so the hours stay honest.
SCOPE AND HOURS
•Weekly commitment: [number] hours, worked [days / flexible]
•Deliverables per week: [number] posts, [number] stories, [number] replies
within [response time]
•Monthly: one written report and one 30-minute review call
•Out of scope without a written change: [paid ads, website, email, events]
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Maintain the content calendar and publish on schedule
•Produce simple creative from supplied assets and on-site capture
•Respond to comments, messages, and reviews within our response times
•Flag anything sensitive to the owner before replying
•Track hours accurately in [our system] every week
•Deliver a monthly summary of what was posted and what it returned
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Proven experience running social accounts for a business
•Available on a predictable weekly schedule
•Can work from a written brief without daily supervision
•[Local availability for on-site capture / fully remote: choose one]
CLASSIFICATION NOTE (the important one)
Part-time does not mean contractor. If you set the schedule, the tools, the
approval process, and the way the work gets done, you are directing an employee,
and calling the arrangement fractional does not change that. A part-time
employee is almost always non-exempt: pay hourly, keep accurate time records,
and pay overtime past forty hours in a week even if the agreement says twenty.
If you genuinely want an independent contractor, engage an agency or a
freelancer who serves other clients, controls their own methods, and invoices
against a statement of work. Misclassification is one of the most expensive
mistakes a small business makes here. This is general information, not legal
advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Business Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour for [number] hours per week
To apply, email __ with your resume, your availability, and
two accounts you currently run.
The Overtime Trap in the Word Manager
A manager title creates no overtime exemption by itself. The Department of Labor is explicit that job titles never determine exempt status, and that the specific duties and salary have to meet the regulation before an employee can be treated as exempt.
Two exemptions are in play. The executive exemption requires managing a recognized department and customarily and regularly directing the work of two or more full-time employees, which a social media manager with no direct reports fails on the spot. The administrative exemption is the realistic route: office work directly related to business operations, performed with discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance.
The title does not create the exemption
The Department of Labor is blunt about this: job titles never determine exempt status, and the duties and salary have to meet the regulation. The executive exemption asks whether the primary duty is managing a recognized department and whether the employee customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more full-time employees, with real weight given to their hiring and firing recommendations. A social media manager with no reports fails that test immediately. The administrative exemption is the realistic route, and it asks whether the primary duty is office work directly related to management or general business operations, performed with the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance. Budget control, final creative approval, and the authority to speak for the brand point toward yes. Executing an approved calendar points toward no. This is general information, not legal advice.
Endorsements and reviews are regulated work
A social media manager who runs creator partnerships, affiliate links, or a review program is doing regulated work. The Federal Trade Commission expects material connections between a brand and anyone endorsing it to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, and that includes your own employees posting about your products on their personal accounts. Separately, the FTC rule on the use of consumer reviews and testimonials, which took effect in October 2024, prohibits fake and AI-generated reviews, insider reviews that hide the relationship, incentives conditioned on a particular sentiment, and the suppression of negative reviews. Violations carry civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation under the 2025 adjusted amounts, which the Office of Management and Budget left unchanged for 2026. Write the disclosure rules into the creator brief and the job description, not into a training you plan to run later. This is general information, not legal advice.
Account ownership belongs in the offer, not the exit
The accounts, the business manager assets, the ad accounts, and the follower relationships are company property, and the only reliable time to say so is before the person starts. Put it in writing in the offer and the handbook: accounts are created in the company name, the owner or a designated officer holds primary admin, access is issued through a company password manager rather than shared in a message thread, and two-factor recovery is attached to a company phone number and a company email address. The failure mode is boring and common. Someone sets up an account with a personal email and a personal phone during a busy week, leaves eighteen months later on bad terms, and the business discovers it cannot recover an account with tens of thousands of followers. Audit access quarterly and revoke it on the last day, not the following month.
Your social media policy has legal limits
A social media manager usually ends up owning or enforcing the employee social media policy, so the policy has to be lawful before you hand it over. Under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, employees at most private employers have the right to discuss wages, hours, and working conditions with each other, including in public on social platforms, and a policy that bans disparaging the company or discussing pay can be found unlawfully overbroad even at a business with no union. Write the policy around what it can legitimately cover: confidential information, customer data, speaking on behalf of the company without authorization, harassment, and disclosure of material connections. Then have the manager enforce it consistently, because selective enforcement is what turns a defensible policy into a complaint. This is general information, not legal advice.
The salary level test still applies to both. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act regulations currently in force, an exempt white-collar employee must be paid at least $684 per week, which is $35,568 per year, after the 2024 rule raising that figure was vacated in federal court and formally rescinded.
Anyone outside an exemption needs hours tracked and overtime paid past forty in a week, including the evening spent clearing comments. Our breakdown of exempt versus non-exempt classification works through the tests in order.
What to Pay a Social Media Manager
There is no Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation titled social media manager. The federal survey does not track the title separately, so any single national salary figure you see for it comes from a private aggregator rather than a government survey. Benchmark against the nearest classifications instead.
Nearest BLS Classifications, National Medians
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), median annual wages were $78,760 for market research analysts and marketing specialists, $74,750 for public relations specialists, and $76,910 for writers and authors. At the management level, medians were $133,660 for advertising and promotions managers, $146,910 for public relations managers, and $166,790 for marketing managers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS national estimates).
Nearest classification
25th percentile
Median
75th percentile
When it is your benchmark
Market research analysts and marketing specialists
$58,350
$78,760
$108,310
The default match for an in-house social media manager
Public relations specialists
$56,260
$74,750
$100,370
When community, reputation, and crisis dominate the role
Writers and authors
$58,230
$76,910
$101,950
When the job is mostly original content production
Advertising and promotions managers
$91,370
$133,660
$201,050
When paid social budget ownership is the core duty
Public relations managers
$106,580
$146,910
$204,520
When the role leads communications and crisis response
Marketing managers
$123,020
$166,790
$216,410
Only for a head of social with a team and a real budget
Most in-house social media manager roles at a small business land in the specialist bands, between the 25th and 75th percentile of market research analysts and marketing specialists, which is $58,350 to $108,310 nationally. That classification is growing: BLS employment projections published through O*NET put it at 941,700 employees in 2024, with growth much faster than average through 2034 and roughly 87,200 openings a year. Adjust for your metro, then publish a good-faith range where pay transparency laws require one.
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A social media manager carries more regulatory exposure than most small businesses expect, because the role publishes claims, runs endorsements, and often enforces the employee social media policy. Three areas matter, and all three belong in the job description rather than in a later conversation.
The first is disclosure. The Federal Trade Commission expects material connections between a brand and anyone endorsing it to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, and its endorsement guides guidance covers creators, affiliates, and employees posting about their own employer. The second is reviews: the FTC rule on the use of consumer reviews and testimonials, effective October 2024, prohibits fake reviews, undisclosed insider reviews, incentives conditioned on a particular sentiment, and review suppression, with civil penalties reaching $53,088 per violation under the current adjusted amounts.
Your Social Media Policy Cannot Ban Wage Talk
The third area is employee speech. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects the right of most private-sector employees to discuss wages, hours, and working conditions with each other, including publicly on social platforms, and that protection does not require a union. A policy that broadly forbids disparaging the company or discussing pay can be found unlawfully overbroad. Write the policy around confidentiality, customer data, unauthorized speaking on behalf of the company, harassment, and disclosure, then enforce it consistently.
Give the new manager a lawful policy to enforce rather than asking them to write one on their first week. Our social media policy template covers the defensible scope, and the same rules apply when social gets used for hiring, which our guide to social media in recruiting works through.
Account Ownership and Access
The accounts belong to the company, and the only reliable moment to establish that is before the person starts. Put ownership in the offer letter, create accounts in the business name, and keep primary administrator rights with the owner or a designated officer rather than with whoever set the account up.
The failure mode is mundane. An account gets created during a busy week with a personal email address and a personal phone number for two-factor recovery. Eighteen months later the person leaves, sometimes on bad terms, and the business finds it cannot recover a channel with tens of thousands of followers because every recovery path runs through a device it does not control.
Access item
How to set it up
What to do on the last day
Platform accounts
Created in the business name, owner as primary admin
Remove the user, rotate the password, confirm admin list
Business manager and ad accounts
Company-owned asset, employee added as a user
Remove user access, verify billing contact is unchanged
Two-factor recovery
Company phone number and company email address only
Confirm recovery methods still resolve to the company
Passwords
Issued through a company password manager, never in chat
Revoke vault access and rotate anything shared
Scheduling and analytics tools
Seats under a company billing account
Deactivate the seat and reassign scheduled content
Brand assets and raw footage
Stored on company drive, not a personal device
Confirm transfer before the final paycheck is processed
Add an account ownership acknowledgment to the onboarding paperwork so it is signed alongside the handbook and the confidentiality agreement. Our onboarding checklist covers the wider sequence, and treating access as part of that checklist rather than an afterthought is what makes offboarding uneventful.
Hiring Without a Marketing Department
Small business social hiring fails in three predictable places: the owner cannot evaluate the portfolio, the role drifts until nobody can define it, and the access and paperwork scatter across six systems. Each has a fix that costs nothing but discipline.
You are hiring for a job you have never done and cannot evaluate
The owner writing this posting usually cannot tell a strong social portfolio from a lucky one. Follower counts are the worst possible proxy: an account can be bought, inherited, or built on a format that has nothing to do with your business. Ask for three accounts the candidate ran, the starting and ending numbers, the timeframe, and what they changed to get there. Then ask what stopped working and what they did next, because that question separates people who ran a channel from people who posted on one. Give a short paid trial task using your own products rather than a hypothetical brief, and judge the work rather than the deck. A candidate who can explain why a post failed is worth more than one who only brings the wins.
The role drifts until nobody can say what it covers
Social is the easiest function in a small business to expand by accident. It starts as four posts a week, then absorbs the website copy, then the email newsletter, then event photography, then customer support, and eighteen months later the person is doing five jobs badly and the posting you hired against describes none of them. Write the scope boundary into the job description on day one: the channels owned, the cadence, the budget, and an explicit out-of-scope list that requires a written change to move. Revisit it at every review. The scope line is also your classification defense, because the exempt or non-exempt decision rests on the duties actually performed, and a role that drifted into production work drifted out of the administrative exemption at the same time.
Access, approvals, and paperwork live in six different places
A social hire arrives with an unusually long access list: platform accounts, business manager, ad accounts, the scheduling tool, the design tool, the analytics stack, the shared drive, and the brand asset library, plus a policy acknowledgment, a confidentiality agreement, and a written statement that the accounts belong to the company. At a small business all of that lives in one person’s inbox until it does not. FirstHR runs the same onboarding sequence for every hire, with an AI onboarding wizard that builds the checklist, built-in e-signature for the policy and confidentiality sign-offs, document management that stores the signed acknowledgments against the employee profile, and task workflows that hand the access list to whoever actually grants it. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
What you say publicly about working at your company is part of this too, since the social manager usually ends up producing it. Our guide to employer branding covers how that content earns its place, and the content manager templates cover the adjacent role if you split content from social.
Key Takeaways
The word manager describes four different jobs in social: a function owner with no reports, a head of social with a team, an execution role wearing a manager title, and a capped part-time engagement.
Write the scope in numbers: channels owned, posting cadence per week, paid budget in dollars, production support, and direct reports, because that is also the record of the duties your classification decision rests on.
No BLS occupation is titled social media manager, so benchmark against market research analysts and marketing specialists at a $78,760 median, with management-level classifications running from $133,660 to $166,790 (OEWS, May 2025).
A manager title creates no overtime exemption. Without two or more direct reports the executive exemption is unavailable, and the administrative exemption requires genuine discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance.
The role carries real regulatory exposure: endorsement disclosure, the FTC consumer reviews rule with penalties up to $53,088 per violation, and a social media policy that cannot lawfully ban employees from discussing pay.
Establish account ownership, admin rights, and two-factor recovery on company-controlled methods before the first day, and revoke every credential on the last day rather than the following month.
A social hire arrives with a long access list and a stack of acknowledgments to sign. FirstHR runs the same onboarding sequence every time, with e-signature for the social media policy and the account ownership acknowledgment, document management that stores them against the employee profile, and task workflows that route the access list to whoever grants it. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a social media manager do?
A social media manager owns a company’s public voice on social platforms end to end: strategy, content calendar, production, community management, paid social budget, and reporting. At a small business the role is usually a function owner rather than a people manager, which means one person decides what gets said, makes it, publishes it, answers the replies, and reports on what it returned. The scope varies more than almost any other marketing title. Some social media managers direct a team of editors and coordinators and never touch a camera. Others shoot on a phone during business hours and post the same afternoon. Write the version you actually need into the job description: channels owned, posting cadence, budget in dollars, whether production is in-house or contracted, and whether anyone reports to this person. Ambiguity there is what makes the first hire fail.
Is a social media manager exempt or non-exempt under the FLSA?
It depends on duties, not the title. The Department of Labor states plainly that job titles never determine exempt status. The executive exemption requires managing a recognized department and customarily and regularly directing the work of two or more full-time employees, so a social media manager with no direct reports fails it. The realistic route is the administrative exemption, which requires office work directly related to management or general business operations plus the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance. A manager who sets strategy, controls a real budget, and has final say on what the brand publishes has a reasonable case. Someone executing a calendar approved by the owner does not, and should be classified non-exempt: hourly, with accurate time records and overtime past forty hours in a week. The salary level test of $684 per week also applies to exempt classification. This is general information, not legal advice.
How much does a social media manager make?
No Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation is titled social media manager, so there is no single official figure and any page that quotes one is quoting a private aggregator rather than a government survey. Benchmark against the nearest classifications instead. In the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), median annual wages were $78,760 for market research analysts and marketing specialists, $74,750 for public relations specialists, and $76,910 for writers and authors, while marketing managers had a median of $166,790 and advertising and promotions managers $133,660. Most in-house social media manager roles at small businesses land between the specialist bands and the manager bands, closer to the specialist end unless the role carries direct reports and budget authority. Use the 25th to 75th percentile range for the classification that matches the actual duties, adjust for your metro, and publish a good-faith range where state pay transparency law requires one.
What is the difference between a social media manager and a social media specialist?
The difference is decision authority, not skill. A specialist executes within a plan: producing content, publishing on schedule, running community management, and reporting on the metrics. A manager sets the plan, controls the budget, approves creative, and carries accountability when something goes wrong in public. At a company large enough to have both, the specialist reports to the manager. At a small business the same person does both jobs and the title question becomes a compensation and classification question rather than an organizational one. That matters more than it sounds, because calling an execution role a manager to make an offer look better can also make an incorrect exempt classification look defensible when it is not. Pick the title that matches the authority you are actually giving, and write the authority into the posting so candidates can tell which job they are applying for.
Who owns the social media accounts when a manager leaves?
The company does, provided you set that up before the person starts rather than after they resign. Create accounts in the business name, keep the owner or a designated officer as primary administrator, issue access through a company password manager rather than a message thread, and attach two-factor recovery to a company phone number and a company email address. Put the ownership statement in the offer letter and the handbook, and have the new hire acknowledge it in writing during onboarding. The common failure is an account created quickly with a personal email and personal phone during a busy stretch, discovered eighteen months later when the person leaves and the business cannot recover a channel with tens of thousands of followers. Audit access quarterly, and revoke every credential on the last day rather than the following month. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR, and the onboarding and offboarding side is live today.
Should a small business hire a social media manager or an agency?
Hire in-house when the content depends on being physically present, and use an agency when it depends on media buying scale. A restaurant, a clinic, a gym, or a trades business generates its content on site, in real time, from work that is happening anyway, and an agency cannot be there for it. A brand whose social results come mostly from paid distribution and creative testing often gets more from an agency than from one junior hire. The middle option is a part-time or fractional social media manager with a capped weekly scope, which keeps the ownership in-house without a full-time salary. If you go part-time, classify honestly: a part-time worker whose schedule, tools, and approval process you control is an employee, and calling the arrangement fractional does not make them a contractor.
What should a social media manager job description include?
Seven things, in this order: the business and why social matters to it, the channels this role owns by name, the posting cadence and paid budget in dollars, the responsibilities split between strategy and production, what can be published without pre-approval and what always escalates, the required experience stated as accounts run rather than years served, and the pay with a classification. Add the account ownership and access terms, an equal opportunity statement, a named person to apply to, and a deadline. The two sections small businesses skip most often are the budget number and the approval boundary, and those are exactly the two that determine whether a strong candidate applies. Vagueness about authority reads as a business that has not decided what it wants, and the best social hires avoid that.
