How To Get a Job in Social Media in 2011Graduating from college with a degree in Doesn’t Really Matteronomics is commendable. Knowing that you belong in the field of Social Media is better. Having a strong urge to work in the emerging space and create ideas (either client side or agency side) is the ideal place to start. It takes a lot of determination to convince an agency or a brand that you have what it takes to control this unknown space.
vocalize the brand onto social media platforms. Sometimes, a brand will look to agencies to hire a Social Strategist for them, and will later train them on the brand.
Before applying for the job of Social Media Strategist, you must prepare yourself on every social platform to build a history and a brand persona for yourself. You are truly a social media specialist if you can give yourself that title, stay dedicated and become relevant within the industry. Setting up a social media campaign for yourself will tell your prospective agency or brand that you can successfully do the same for them.
Prior to applying for a job at an agency or brand, make sure all of your social networks are current, appealing, and busy. You want to show the hiring committee that you know exactly what you are doing. Here is how to do that:
Facebook:
- Keep your profile attractive and open to the public. This will show the company that you have nothing to hide in the world of social media.
- Post links to relevant articles and blogs that are related to what you want to be doing.
- Become a “Liker” of many social media outlets and important people.
- Delete or un-tag yourself in any photos that may appear to be NSFW.
- Make sure that your profile picture shows a clean, respectable view of who you are.
- Keep your “Info” tab up-to-date, and list anything and everything you have done in the past. This will help to highlight your strong points and interests.
Twitter:
- Make sure your Twitter handle is not too difficult to understand and is easy to remember. This might be how a company remembers you and follows you while they are in the decision making stages.
- Use a clean-cut image. Preferably a headshot or clear picture of your face.
- Create a customized background that shows links to more about where you are located in the social sphere. (e.g., links to Blogs you author, links to Facebook pages, LinkedIn profile, YouTube channels, etc.)
- Keep your Twitter profile public. Don’t come across as hiding anything. The team that you are wishing to be a part of will be checking to see how and when you update.
Blog:
- If you don’t have a blog in the year 2011, that is okay; but there should be some sort of platform that is branded by you, and that is updated on a daily basis – like Tumblr. This will show the brand or agency that you are active, and can personalize things to be your own.
- Make your blog “awesome”. “Awesome appeal” will always win over the decision makers. Their job of hiring for a position in social media is to make sure they hire somebody a lot more “awesome” than they are.
Foursquare:
- Even though you must be “friends” with someone on Foursquare to be able to follow them, make sure you are on it. Your future employer wants to see that you stay current with the social media trends.
- Keep your profile up-to-date and list as many skills as possible.
- Include an attractive, current picture.
- Link to your blog, Twitter, and other relevant platforms.
- Create as many connections as possible. Knowing the right people can certainly open doors.
- Get references. This is a huge bonus for anyone seeking a job!
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Great post Stephanie.
I interview candidates for Social Media Roles as well, and one of the things I am amazed with is how little engagement I see on their own personal social media channels. How can someone create engagement for a brand if they are not capable of generating interest on their own Facebook Page?
Another important point on Linkedin is to join Relevant Groups. Being part of a group like Social Media Marketing or Digital Marketing opens up access to many more people.
Thanks Marsha! I definitely agree that showing the ability to create a community is very important in this industry. – Steph
I would rather have a Social Media person that is smart enough to have no Social Media presence at all. One’s own name is invaluable, and crafting social profiles strictly to win the the favor of potential employers is downright short-sighted (not to mention limiting since your name is the bond that ties you to family, friends, coworkers and other involved in your non-career interests). I would rather hire a Social Media person with no profiles and excellent experience with clients than one that has many profiles that regurgitate the posts of others and evangelizes the industry.
Good work, not opportunistic profile creation, is good reputation management.
Ron,
Thanks for the comment! While I agree that sometimes a strategist should only be concerned with the clients work, this post was more driven to people who are brand new in the industry. When bringing people in who have little experience, sometimes we might find that experience in social media personally is as important as experience with client work. This heavily depends on the type of client that prospect might be working with. I definitely agree with your point but also feel that the new employee should be able to be molded into the type of strategist that the company desires. If that means deleting what they have personally and solely working on client material or continuing with their personal appearance within social media is purely up to the employer.
Thanks!
Steph
Stephanie,
Thank you for your response. While I certainly respect your opinion, I feel it’s dangerous and shortsighted to encourage Social Media novices to build out their name as a marketing brand (although some may argue that all names are brands, the value and image once assigned can often never be rescinded).
A potential employee that shows the foresight to build out properties on another name or handle than their own shows much more strategic promise than a potential employee that is building up the cache of personal name profiles. It shows that they understand the need for a division between business and personal, something that is increasingly being lost as people become more “social.”
An extreme example, Edward Bernays referred to public relations as propaganda prior to World War II. After World War II, the word “propaganda” took on its more sinister undertones — prompting propagandists to become public relations professionals (the irony of PR for PR not being lost). Now with historical indexing, what you’ve once defined yourself as can no longer be swept away that simply. Let’s say that “Social Media Marketer” takes on the connotation down the line of, oh let’s say, telemarketer. Now, your personal brand has been damaged by association. When it’s your name, that’s a huge problem.
It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to blur the line between professional and personal in the profiles associated with their name because once it is done there’s no going back, not in any definitive sense. You have to commit to that association. It’s not a question of molding an employee into what you want them to be. It’s a question of being able to distinguish between business and personal audiences, something that if not done correctly can cause one to lose their ability to interact with personal audiences socially.
I know a lot of Social Media Marketers now that can no longer use or enjoy many social channels personally because they’ve polluted their own names with marketing efforts (Twitter being a prime offender). And once your no longer personally interacting (due to audience cross-contamination, fear of saying the wrong thing in front of the wrong audience, predilection towards marketing posts, etc.), you lose sight of the purpose and often lose the passion for it.
I would encourage burgeoning Social Media Marketers to create social assets under another name or handle, with the exception being LinkedIn. Link through LinkedIn to the work you’ve done on handle’s social profiles. Limit what you allow to be displayed before a login with your personal profiles. This will keep your SERPs relatively clean for the future development and allow you to change your mind if you want to pursue some other type of career down the line. That type of thinking makes me want to hire you over someone with a myriad of titular profiles. One looks strategic while the other appears to be a self-promoter.
You only have one name. Treat it as if it has value.
@Ron,
I really appreciate your enthusiasm for this topic and thank you for the points you bring up here. They are all really valid. There are definitely strong opinions as to the best way to go about launching oneself into the industry.
The main point I was trying to convey is that building out your personal brand is important regardless of how you do it, whether on personal channels or other channels youve built on your own. It is just important to show some knowledge and conviction to being active in the social space.
Some people take the plunge into social media and some don’t. Watching daily as a person grows and survives (or doesn’t) in this industry is amazing and fun, like a reality show. Clients love knowing that the minds of their campaigns are active all the time. It might not be for everyone but it definitely should not be frowned upon.
Thanks again for all of your thoughts! Hope to see you back here.
-Steph
Steph,
I absolutely agree with you that building out your personal brand is important; I just feel it’s important to convey the caveats and pitfalls associated with that. Aspiring Social Media Specialists need to come up with a safe plan before executing their personal Social brand strategy, and one of those strategic elements is how they should use their name.
While I disagree with some of your points on Social profile management, I think that anything that gets future marketers to think strategically about their careers is beneficial. And BlueGlass is a great example of how personal brands can be parlayed into professional execution — as consolidating the insights of Chris, Dave, Brent, Loren and Greg under one house is just smart business.
It takes a lot of hard work and clever planning to grow a personal brand to such a strong position, but providing newcomers with the tools to give it a go (safely and based off of the experiences of those before them) is a good thing.
Keep up the good work, and I’ll keep reading.
-Ron
Thanks for this post Stephanie. Great tips! I am on the right track…
@Marsha – While I’d like to build on my own personal social media footprint, I am engaging far more on my companies profiles.
One of my responsibilities in my current role is to drive and manage social media marketing and buzz on Twitter, Facebook Pages, YouTube Channel and LinkedIn Groups – which prior to my joining was pretty non-existent and unmanaged.
I do engage in social media channels outside of “normal” working hours but tend to invest a lot of that time into developing the companies brand instead of mine. Why? Because in the time that I have been doing that I have seen a dramatic increase in social interactions and conversations taking place which in my book means that all the effort being put into those activities are going to be of benefit to my employers.
I work long hours, and as a husband and father to 2 kids find it difficult to concentrate on my personal social media profiles while investing so heavily in those of my employer.
How would you judge/rate candidates you interview in a similar situation? Would the time invested in engaging with corporate social media influence your views on them lacking their own own personal visibility?
@Pedro – simply being engaged is enough! The fact that you run your companies social media efforts are valuable as just that. Being able to prove that you have community building skills once you are already in the industry is key in showing you are able to build any type of community.
There is no harm in additionally having personal efforts. Some marketers will actually incorporate their lives as a busy dad into their social profiles; http://www.moderndaydad.com/ for example. But of course everyone has completely different situations and we all do not have the same time to do things like this.
Therefore, just because you represent your company on social media platforms does not mean you lack personal visibility. You are using your personalty to represent a brand, which is also very valuable.
-Steph
@Pedro If I were to interview a candidate with your experience I would ask for a portfolio of screen shots illustrating levels of engagement, writing samples, and any metrics that you had indicating the impact on the business, such as a lift in engagement, web traffic or sales. You are doing great! Please send me your resume! :)
@ Stephanie – thank you for getting me. I was only referring to people looking for jobs in Social Media, with little to no experience. We are living in the most unique time where people have the ability to create their own personal brand and through natural connections and conversations, engage their communities.
Stephanie thanks for an informative post and solid advice
I am going to college for Visual Communications/Media Design and Social media. I never thought I could put Facebook on my resume. You said that the profiles should be public. I agree with Ron in that I would not like to get my close friends and family involved. Would it help to have a private AND public page so that people know what is acceptable to be posting?
Also, I am going for my associates degree. I have been debating on whether or not I should go further. My school is the only school in the area with this program and they do not offer higher than an associate degree. I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Thanks.