Social media is a happening place to be right now. It is still an emerging space rife with a number of opportunities. There are a number of areas within the social media upon which an entire career can be built. If you are 20-something, ready to make some unconventional career choices, here are the top five options to choose from.
The rise of social media as a legible medium of marketing has been nothing short of spectacular. Its prominence has grown over the last couple of years changing the world of marketing forever. With social networks like Facebook having more than 1 billion active members, LinkedIn and Twitter also having members greater than 200 million, companies know how effective these networks can prove as an advertising medium. At a cost which is miniscule as compared to, say, a television advertising campaign, companies can reach out to a larger audience and more importantly a targeted audience ensuring greater ROI.
Whether it is tweets, videos, pictures, articles or anything else that will stimulate the minds of the viewers, firms are exerting great efforts to seek customer attention. Anything or anyone who can create a stir, generate comments and a following is a hot property in the digital age. This is precisely why companies are looking for people who know how to create online buzz. Candidates with good blogging skills or experience in setting up a LinkedIn and Facebook account can craft a full-fledged career out of this seemingly less useful quality.
Is social media a career?
For those who are still skeptic about a career into social media, these incredible stats would surely quench their suspicion
Since it is still an emerging field, pay scales are yet to stabilize. You get paid for what you achieve and the experience you gain. To give the estimates a number, your current average salary in social media is in the range of US$45,000 to six figures. No one had thought about Facebook’s career generating capabilities when the social network came to existence. But with social media marketing the dynamics have changed completely. One look at the top careers in social media and the respective skills required to pursue them:
Social Media Manager
A social media manager is a very wide role, having multiple business objectives. Such an all-inclusive role is quite hard to fill as it takes the knowledge of advertising, marketing, public relations, consumer behavior and few other concepts to achieve the end goal. There are not many who are conversant with the responsibilities and tasks assigned to a social media manager. A social media manager oversees the creation and execution of the company’s social media strategy that again is an all-inclusive term that includes a range of other activities such as blogging, micro-blogging, community creation and participation, content creation and others. To succeed, you have to be passionate about Web 2.0 and all of its elements such as blogs, social networks and last but not the least analytics tools. A job in the capacity of social media manager will earn you a salary anywhere between US$50,000 and US$75,000.
Content Strategist
While a content strategist is not limited to the realms of “social media”, nevertheless a content strategist plays an important role in the overall digital marketing initiatives of the company. As a content strategist your role will include assessing, cataloguing and organizing the content across all social media platforms and the business website. You will be responsible for developing editorial workflow for client projects. You will be a key member of the creative team.
Content Curator
A content curator’s responsibilities are quite niche as compared to the content strategist. Your job will not be to create any new content. Instead you will be scouring the web for the interesting content being created by others on the web to feed to your social media platforms. This doesn’t make the task any easier as you will be making sure that the content being shared on your company Facebook page matches it thematically, has the potential of going viral, and creates a positive buzz for your brand. Plus, the content shouldn’t be copyrighted. The average salary figures that are available depict a salary range of $US 23,000 to $86,000.
Community Manager
Creating a good piece of content is only half the task done. Until or unless that content is shared within your target audience, it wouldn’t add any value to the company’s marketing initiatives. Coming back to the basic, social media or social networks are all about sharing. A community manager creates, maintains, and moderates community of likeminded people with a covert mission of spreading positive word about the brand/personality/company. In a multinational firm, his role will include overseeing company blogs, forums, and online discussions. A marketing person who is heavily influenced by Web 2.0 is the perfect person for this job.
Online Reputation Manager
Mix a little PR skills with community management and social media, & what you get is an online reputation manager. It is strictly not a social media position, but nevertheless your work with social streams on a daily basis makes you eligible for a mention here. The task cut out in front of an online repo manager includes making sure any undesirable online info about the client removed from Google search. The salary prospects are quite bright. A good track record will earn you a salary of around $80,000 annually.
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Saurabh Tyagi is an expert writer having interest in diverse topics like education, technology, career and Web 2.0. He is a social media enthusiast and a self-confessed gadget-freak, who loves to follow the latest happenings in the tech world. Search Facebook Career.
