Connor Brooke
Lately, I have seen a lot of openings for social media jobs. Below is one example.
Social Media Manager
Essential Job Duties/Responsibilities: Source Job Posting for Answer Financial
- Identify social media opportunities and develop an actionable plan for execution
- Manage company presence in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and other similar community sites
- Produce unique content for blog posts and infographics that can be distributed to mainstream media and other social media influencers
- Develop strategies for growing and leveraging our social media follower base including using promotions, contests, polls, ads, surveys and referral programs
- Become an advocate of the company in social media spaces by responding to customer comments, participating and posting on relevant blogs and forums
- Identify, interpret, and capitalize on existing or new social media trends, tools, and applications
- Create and monitor benchmarks for measuring the impact of social media programs and campaigns and report on their effectiveness
- Create, maintain and execute a social media editorial calendar and posting schedule
- Identify and use social listening tools or other methods to monitor and participate in industry related online conversations across multiple channels
- Work with internal departments such as Marketing, Legal, Project Management, and Engineering to coordinate and execute on the social media plan
Here are some questions I have regarding this position.
Can someone seriously spend 8 hours a day on social media and actually bring in new clients and perform client service only on social media sites?
If you started in this position tomorrow, how would you know where your clients are? Business Development is key.
Wouldn’t this person need to have an understanding of the company’s business products and services to accurately post content.
It looks like a lot of formal planning would be involved here?
Should one person really handle all of this?
I did not see that any other people report to this person?
How much authority does this person have with respect to posting information regarding the Insurance Industry?
Would all work need to be approved by the different departments: Marketing, Legal, Project Management?
My point here is that social media is one channel and it needs to be incorporated into the functions of the business and not left alone by itself. For small companies, social media works great because you have people who understand the different departmental functions. For this reason, it is great when a CEO, or high ranking executive is the social media representative for the company. This model to me is a setup for failure. Lots of planning and little results.
The Takeaway for Executives
If you are an executive who works with social media, you should look at the above functions and make it a priority to develop skills in each of these areas. If you are a social media manager, your goal should be to become the “expert informational specialist” in your field. This knowledge along with the proper communication whether it be on social media, in person or through another medium is the key to success.
Finally..
Is there a need for a social media position?
I really think this position should start with a firm knowledge of the company’s offerings and a better understanding of its client make-up.
We need more people who are willing to learn more about companies and their respective clients and their needs. We live in a client-driven society. Don’t forget the client.
Continue to stay on top of what is working and not working with respect to social media. The best way I have found is to ask executives who work with social media on a regular basis what is working and what is not working. If you can find these type of people, (relatively few) you will save yourself a lot of time and resources.
I believe you will see a trend in articles indicating social media is a waste of time for companies. If they follow, the model above this could be right.
Social media is one channel. Don’t forget the other channels: customer service, face-to-face, phone and email.
photo credit: Zach Klein via photo pin cc
photo credit: inlinguaManchester via photo pin cc
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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Social media positions are the new mailroom position. As standalone jobs, they’re opportunities to find out the external positioning of a company and to have some context for learning about the internal works of a company’s priorities as well. I agree that the long-term play is combining social media, community management, and information management into a larger role based around customer service and competitive intelligence, but social media can be a standalone job if constructed and managed correctly.
Hyoun
Social media is another channel. I feel that companies need to identify people in the company who have a great understanding of the company’s products and services along with their current clients that they serve.
Social media jobs are gaining in popularity. The demand for social media managers is also very high as more businesses are finding that they cannot manage their social media presence on their own. As a result of this more people are beginning to work from home. To find social media jobs and to get training for these positions has never been easier. Our website is one place where you can find such jobs and training.
What type of results are achieved? This is my point.