One of the interesting questions I’m asked often is, “how do I get a job in social media?“. It’s an interesting question because social media and online marketing are still fairly new industries. Not many colleges offer a degree or major specifically for digital marketing and most business owners are still unsure exactly what the position requires.
So with all this uncertainty, how can you find a job and make sure the potential employer realizes you’re the person for the job?
Available Jobs in Digital Marketing
First, let’s start by looking at what jobs are available. As the industry grows, there are more and more jobs being introduced – obviously. Regardless, they tend to fall within three categories: the in-house manager, agency consultant, and self-employed consultant.
In-house Manager
The in-house manager works for a specific company, Johnson and Johnson or Best Buy for example, and covers aspects of the digital marketing for the company. Being in-house means you integrate with parts of the company, identify optimizations on the site, and create social media strategies.
In-house social media managers tend to take care of the day to day planning and execution of strategies. You’re the one in charge of a Facebook fan page, or working towards creating a good Twitter account.
Be passionate about the company you’re applying to, and be prepared to do a lot of reporting. As an in-house social media manager, you’ll be tasked with continually proving the worth of a social media department.
Agency Consultant
Consultants that work for agencies, advise a number of clients. The nice thing about being a consultant is that you get to work on a number of clients and experience different challenges.
Most consultants are called in to answer specific questions or solve problems. Social media consultants generally help brands get started with social media or create long-term strategies.
It can be frustrating to work with companies that are unwilling to execute ideas or go against best practices. It can also be tough putting together a great idea and not being able to follow through with it. However, the ability to work with so many different industries and companies can keep things from getting stale.
Self Employed Consultant
It’s harder to success as a self-employed consultant versus being an in-house manager or agency consultant. Self-employed consultants work with small and medium sized business to create and employ online marketing strategies.
Generally, self-employed consultants need to be well versed in all aspects of online marketing including; SEO, content creation, a little bit of web dev, and ppc. Since most smaller businesses don’t have a huge marketing budget, they tend to look for someone that can do it all.
If you’re looking to get started as a self-employed consultant, learn everything about online marketing. Start with a small client in your area and don’t forget to take some to build your portfolio. It will be slow, but for many, it can be the best way to work.
Finding the Best Job
For those of us that aren’t ready to be self-employed, yet, it can be difficult to find a good job. The best way to start is to look at job boards and ask around.
Make sure you look at Mashable, SEOmoz, ProBlogger, and Marketing Pilgrim job boards – these are great places to start.
I highly recommend starting a blog and just sharing your thoughts about anything. The topic doesn’t need to be about online marketing or marketing related. Being a part of the community can be the best way to get a great social media job.
Think about it from an employers point of view. If I’m an agency that has a number of tech clients, a tech blogger would be a great addition to our social media team. Same with in-house – many companies hire social media community managers from the very bloggers they outreach to.
Proving You’re the Right Person
Once you’ve found the job, you’ll have to prove you’re the right person for it. The best first step is to make sure you’re passionate about the brand. Do your homework and research what the company has done and be prepared to talk about it and be prepared to share what you would like to do.
Know what’s going on in social media and be active. It’s so easy to get social media experience, but don’t only use it, analyze it. Question why something works and share your theories. Potential employers want a social media strategist that not only uses social media, but also is looking to maximize it and forecast what’s next.
General Career Advice
The best advice I can give anyone, when it comes to getting a job, network as much as you can. It’s so simply to meet new people and make connections with things like Facebook and Twitter. Don’t forget email and be open to just emailing someone and build a relationship.
A good social media strategist is good at building relationships – you should be able to build a network and influence someone into hiring you. Don’t be afraid, go out there and start doing what you do best… being social.
A special shout out to Chris from 10e20 who helped me find the job I have now.
How did you get your job? Did someone help you? Share your thoughts
I just started in a position as a Social Media Internet Marketing Admin, and love how new and fresh the position is. There are no ‘real’ boundaries because there are no ‘real’ experts. The best thing about it is conquering new ideas and formulas within the social media realm and trying to lead by example.
It’s a great industry.
@Whitney
It’ll be interesting to see if you’ll be free from traditional shackles as your job continues. At some point, I’d bet that someone’s going to throw a few obstacles your way.
Best of luck, though!
Phil
I totally agree. I love this industry because there is so much room for growth and change. Good luck at your new position!
I have just started recruiting for the Omniture Business Unit of Adobe, and although I have recruited for a long time, the demand and landscape for Marketing Professionals seems to have shifted to the niche areas you have spoken of. It is cool to see the demand for Social Media, Mobile, etc. really begin to take off. If anyone has questions about the inner workings of the in house recruiting process, I can help out. I have a few Product Marketing Manager positions open myself too with emphasis in the areas mentioned. kyenchik@adobe.com
As an agency consultant I can certainly attest to the different challenges. It is invigorating work and exposes you to so much. I do feel that being in an agency really evokes creativity and with social media, you get a different experience from industry to industry. My agency has a wide range of clients and you’re right..it is a challenge to get some to understand why this is important and embrace ideas on how they can get involved. But I feel we are all doing very important work.
I love working for an agency. It’s so much fun and the fact that everything changes keeps things interesting. Good to hear that you enjoy what you do!
Thanks for the post Samir. I graduate in June from The Art Institute of Portland where my focus has been Design Management.
Now I am trying to make my way into Social Media, and my experience comes from being a self employed consultant. I have had the chance to work with Bands, DJs, Night Clubs, and Concert Promoters, but I am building my local business experience to diversify my portfolio. I find that a lot of local business wants someone to run their Social Campaigns, but they aren’t aware that there are people doing it for a reasonable price. You can sweep up 5 clients in a weekend at a local business networking events.
Unfortunately, besides that I have had limited success finding jobs to even apply for, so thanks for the links to those job boards.
I’ve worked as a consultant and also on the agency side. Both great learning experiences that offer their own set of benefits and challenges. Now I’m in transition again, looking for an in-house position. I actually started out by myself not too long ago, but quickly realized that I couldn’t achieve the scale and quality of projects I wanted to working on my own. It became very apparent that a well-rounded social media strategy involved a number of different disciplines that I had little experience and the best ideas (and my expectations of product/service quality) would come from a team.
That said, I pursued opportunities at agencies and started out really small, searching for internships on Craigslist. Being in Los Angeles really helped me there because there’s a really big market for digital jobs here, but also constantly teaching myself new things and being on the forefront of not just social media marketing developments but also traditional marketing and PR strategies gave me the edge I needed to prove myself valuable to the agencies I worked for.
Overall, there are a growing number of social media positions out there but just like any job, if you want to get ahead and make a career out of it, you have to know how to do more than just update a Facebook page or a Twitter feed. It takes a lot of self-initiative and continuous education and exploration. At the end of the day you also have to provide a valuable product to your clients that shows that their investment in you is helping to grow their business. It’s not exactly and easy job, but it can be fun if you truly enjoy the work.
I think the best tip is to just get social on your own behalf, treating yourself as a business. Think of it as sort of a side project and run your own blog, Facebook page, Twitter, and all of the strategies you’d use for your clients for yourself. It keeps you learning, networking, and you never know what could come of it.
I found my job on the personal blog of a social media & PR events organizer. Therefore, I recommend reading blogs of people who are really into the area you’re interested in, not just prospective employers, but also social media enthusiasts. It also helped that I was writing weekly articles on a collective blog, both to show I was interested in the domain and that I could commit to a schedule.