A former colleague mentioned an article written about careers in social media. The article talks about how difficult it is to objectify the sort of person required for a “community manager” role or for any sort of social media role. Why is this worth writing about? I question why most organizations would want to hire a dedicated social media person. I’m all for organizations being forward thinking, but the people who run around looking for gurus who spew their insights about social media for the sake of social media for the sake of being at the top of everyone’s RSS feeds need to get a grip. Truth be told, the social media pundits do too. Social media is code for “have you been paying attention to what is going on (online) for the last 12-24 months?”, despite the efforts of the Stanford faculty.
Let me back up here for a moment. An organization that is seriously pushing the envelope of social media, like ClearSpring, needs a community manager like my friend Justin Thorp. A company like a hotel probably does not. The difference is that a company like ClearSpring is expanding into markets that haven’t been charted yet, and they need people who can get others excited about those uncharted territories. A hotel needs someone who can do marketing, PR, and who happens to have been paying attention.
These are two entirely different people. The second might have attended a training class on how to leverage Facebook while the first probably organized a Facebook developer garage. One might have an iPhone, the other has had an iPhone and probably organized a group to take their iPhones apart and then re-Program them. They both have a place, but they have different places. If you don’t understand the difference then I recommend reading iWoz, or asking someone who has heard of a blue box. I guess the bottom line here is that it takes one to know one. If reading this makes you want to say “I’m not an engineer” then you should consult experts in this field.
The bottom line is that there are people who set trends and people who follow others who set trends in a one sized fits all manner. Every company needs to hire people who are paying attention, but not every company needs to follow every trend.
Update - I thought that a few links that are tangential to this post might be of interest to some of you. Here they are:
March 26th, 2008 at 3:35 am
This is really and truly great advice that needs attention from LOTS of people. It might interest you to know that my role within my organization is to be the guy that SORTS the trends into “neat, but still in the future” and “you’d better think about this today, and decide how you want to proceed.”
And then I tell a few hundred thousand people which is which, and try to give them education on the latter.
GREAT post. Thanks!
March 26th, 2008 at 4:07 am
great advice
March 26th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Great post that couldn’t come at a more timely manner. I am in between jobs right now and find myself in this position. Your post has given me some food for some deep thought. Thanks!
March 30th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I agree. The way I see it, the only companies that *really* need dedicated social media people are (a) those that are, in your words, “seriously pushing the envelope”; (b) those with a large customer base that they want to interact with more deeply, such as Dell, Pepsi, and Lonely Planet; (c) those with a large internal communication and collaboration requirement(though a social media savvy internal communications person could do this job just as well).
For most other companies, social media is really an add-on task for marketing, HR, and internal communications.
In other words, if social media isn’t going to be of strategic benefit or importance to you, don’t bother hiring a dedicated person for it.
Great post and thanks for making that point.