3 Things to Know Before You Become a Social Media Professional

About this time last year, I made the decision to leave my role as a Senior IT Auditor for a career as a Social Media Marketing professional.  I carefully considered the risks about making the switch-a-roo: more competition, less job security, and having to start from scratch.  However, the benefits far out-weighed the risks: unlimited growth opportunities, exciting and new role, and the ability to do something that I was passionate about.

For those of you who are thinking about a career in social media, this is probably the first thing that comes to mind: “I’m going to be paid for being on Facebook all day!” Yes that’s true, but there’s a lot more to it than that.  As a social media professional, you will no longer be on Facebook or Twitter just to stay in touch with your friends and family.  Instead, you’ll reaching out to customers on behalf of an organization.  You will be the voice of the brand and your microphone will be on every time you log-on to your social handle.  As exciting as it sounds, here are 3 things I wish I knew about the role before I took the plunge:

1. It’s customer service.

Unless you are representing a brand that everyone loves and adores like Disney, you will find yourself interacting with customers who may be upset about their recent experience with your company’s product or service.  If customers cannot get their issues resolved via traditional customer service channels like the 1-800 number, then guess what?  They’re going to tweet about it and post on your Facebook page for everyone to see until the issue gets resolved.   The good news is, senior executives these days know what the word “viral” means – so they will support you to ensure that the issue gets resolved and before it spreads like wildfire.

Think about what industry you are going for when you enter the world of social media in terms of customer service.  Is it the retail, banking, or insurance industry?  I was the community moderator for a rewards program in the retail industry, where the rewards points could be used in the store as a form of currency.  Anytime you’re working in an industry that could eff with someone’s money, it’ll probably have a high customer service element to it.  How about the fashion, entertainment, or sports industry?  Perhaps those would be more fun and engaging social media outlets and not so customer service-oriented.

2. It’s not free.  

Social media is free for you and me.  However, if you’re hired on by an organization to build their fan base, increase engagement, and create cool apps…those are not free.  When you’re interviewing for a social media position, make sure you ask what your performance metrics will be – such as the number of new fans, number of impressions, percentage of engagement, etc.  Then, follow up that question with how much money in the social media budget you will have to make that happen.  If they tell you that they are relying solely on organic growth (i.e., unpaid advertisement), then proceed with caution.  You’ll be limited to just content creation.  As compelling as your posts and tweets may be, that alone might not be enough to get you the millions of fans and followers they expected from you.

3. It’s not a 9-5 job.  

Social media doesn’t sleep.  Your fans will be reaching out at all hours of the day and during the weekends, so you need to understand your company’s expectations on acceptable response times.  Do they want you to respond within one business day or within one hour?  Whatever the expectation is, you have to stick to it because everything has a time-stamp on it for everyone to see.  If my boss saw a post from Saturday at 10 a.m. that wasn’t followed up with my response, then I would receive a phone call about it as soon as I walked into the office on Monday morning.

There are good social media moderation tools out there to help with managing off-hours posts and replies, but going back to my second point – the really good ones are not free.  Unfortunately, since I actually have a life outside of work, I had to pay for the moderation tool out of my own pocket.

So now I sound like a social media curmudgeon.  Sorry if I burst your bubble that it’s not all fun and glamourous.  I just wish someone gave me the heads up on those things. Don’t get me wrong – there were some things I absolutely loved about that role such content creation, listening and reporting, and connecting with people.  Oh, and did I mention that I got paid to be on Facebook all day?

I’m happy that I made the switch and my career grew more in the first 6 months in social media than it did in my previous 4 years as an auditor.  At the end of the day, just go for what you love to do.  It also helps to make sure you know exactly what you’re getting into (good and bad) before you go for it.