In a recent visit with a class of college seniors, I was asked rather pointedly: are there any jobs in Social Media? Pondering this question, I had to answer it from two perspectives: the marketing agency, and the business organization.
First, the Agency Perspective
This is the far easier perspective. There are indeed roles that focus largely on social media. Marketing Agency clients who are either resource-strained or lack native expertise often outsource some aspects of social media communications to agencies whose mastery of branding, marketing communications, audience analytics, CRM, user experience design and social listening across various social channels and technical platforms can help the client achieve their audience goals.
Now, the Corporate Perspective
This one is by far more nuanced, but the answer is still a qualified yes. While there may not be corporate social media “jobs” per se, social media can help you perform just about any role better – whether or not your role is marketing intern. Consider the following aspects of work life and the importance of social media savvy for each aspect – no matter what profession or set of duties you are considering.
The Producer’s Role (your “product”)
Just about every job requires you to produce a measurable output. That could be a product, a result, a process step, a calculation, a recommendation, a report, etc. As a producer, you need to master certain skills such as content development to effectively communicate your process and results. It is useful to develop a “voice” within your team, company, and industry. Having an authentic, trusted, competent voice builds support for your ideas and for communicating results.
Social media channels can help you build and amplify your voice when you publish your ideas. A blog, wiki or website, a SlideShare-hosted PowerPoint presentation, a .pdf, or perhaps even a short video illustrating your message – all are useful avenues for publishing your (non-proprietary) works. Learning how to produce your content, including compelling visuals, is a good start. Knowing how to tag your content so it is searchable and visible online is now a baseline skill. Having grown up online, dear graduate, you probably know the importance of tagging and you consider it a natural part of projecting your content and your voice.
The Analyst’s Role (your “antenna”)
Often your job requires you to analyze information, interpret it in light of your organization’s needs and priorities, and present your interpretation in a way that is sensitive to your audience’s culture and your impact on their behavior. Learning to monitor social media channels within your industry, profession and business community can help you develop your “antenna” – a sensitivity to audience needs, requirements and trends – that can then help you better communicate your analyses and interpretations, raise awareness, enlist support, stimulate action and lead change.
Time spent on social media channels can also help you make sense of information, intelligently filter it, separate signal from noise and draw better-informed conclusions about the relative value of other voices and sources you encounter online.
The Designer’s Role (your “voice”)
Designers need to balance multiple roles, such as upward accountability for results as well as lateral, cross-organizational collaboration. Use of social media technologies helps you perform these functions better. Even simple schedule, project, chat, survey and other collaboration tools help you improve the quality and timeliness of your contribution to results. Enterprise software tools may often include intra-organizational social features, such as chat and wiki.
Crowdsourcing your ideas invites a broad array of new ideas and inputs, and helps validate a concrete course of action. Since it is widely accepted that at any given point in time the smartest people on any subject probably do not work with you or for you, consider crowdsourcing! Invite others’ input, learn to mediate and moderate among various idea directions, and you can achieve far better results, and possibly even avoid costly mistakes.
The Dispatcher’s Role (your “audience”)
Sending information is a standard function in most jobs. Social media tools give you practice at building an audience, understanding communications and cultural dynamics, and packaging your communications in ways that build a receptive audience clarify understanding.
The Leader’s Role (your “compass”)
The effective leader shepherds activity toward productive outcomes. Building omni-directional communication skills within channels, and cultivating a multi-channel audience, helps the organization leader communicate more effectively, support collaboration and achieve communication goals.
Over to You
So, dear Graduate, think not just about a social media job; think about how social media helps you do just about any job better. Can you think of a way it has worked, or could work, for you? What tools are you finding effective? I deliberately didn’t name many here. Love to hear your comments!
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