Have looked at some of the job descriptions lately for Social Media jobs? If you want a good laugh, you should check some of them out some time. There have really become 3 distinctive groups when it comes to these listings.
- Postings that are realistic in scope and compensation.
- Postings that ask you to know PR, Social Media, E-Mail Marketing, HTML, etc. and have 6-8 years of experience.
- Postings that compensate poorly.
The first group is the group that are the ideal job postings. The company has a proper grasp of what they are really looking for and understand the compensation required to get good and experienced talent for that role. They understand that social media is more than just posting “stuff” on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so forth. Strategy, development and execution are required to handle this role properly. Some level of professionalism and prior experience is also required to help ensure good quality posts and responses to the public.
The second group is looking for someone that knows and does everything. There are no doubt some people that have ALL of these skill sets, though probably very few people, and the bigger question is, can they do each of them well? Some of this type of job description can come from a business that doesn’t know if they can financially justify having one person handle all of their social media activities exclusively, and not have any other responsibilities. Depending on the size of the company, that could be true, but if more and more responsibilities are added, that individual will be more divided in their thinking and may do many thing fairly well instead of being excellent at one specific role. The lines of PR and Marketing are starting to blur, especially with Social Media. So these roles could be put together, but then to add HTML, webinars, blogging and so forth to the “mix”, that’s a lot of work for one person to be responsible for and be highly skilled at. Are they going to be allowed to go on vacations, sleep or ever leave the office? It may be what the company needs, but is it realistic to have all of that on one person?
The third group are companies who may have heard about this “Social Media thing”, and are expecting someone who graduated out of High School or is currently in college, to come in and be an intern for next to nothing and do this for their company. The postings can be like “Do you have a passion for Facebook and Twitter?”. They want something, anything to be done so that they can say they have a Facebook or a Twitter account. So you’re an established, possibly a million dollar company, and you want someone that has never worked for you before, someone that has not had any professional working experience, be the “voice” of your company online? Really? You’re fine and comfortable with that? Sadly, these companies probably don’t know the real value in getting good help in this area of their business. So they’re probably in just a hurry to just get someone to do this “stuff” for them. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and so they probably will not get good results, and will just then give up on Social Media because of that.
The Social Media job market is still a relatively new sector, and will eventually level out as to expectations and compensation. So if you’re in that sector, patience and diligence is required. Get what your worth and what you deserve. What do you think of the current job listings for social media positions?