5 Jobs in Social Media

Social media has changed the world in many ways, some obvious and others more subtle. It’s shaken up a number of industries, but perhaps the biggest quake has been felt in the marketing, communications and personal relations (PR) sector.

The way that companies present themselves and their products to their customers and clients has rapidly evolved, and out of this evolution has come a host of new job titles. Here’s just a selection of the roles you’ll find in the social media workplace.

Data analyst

Social media data analysts are hunter-gathers, hunting for valuable data in the sea of online information, and gathering that data together to form a meaningful picture. As a social media data analyst, your job will involve social listening – monitoring (public) online conversations in order to get an idea of what people think and feel about a company, industry, product or issue.

You’ll create insights reports on what you find; these won’t just present the data, but will interpret and provide commentary on it. Data harvesting has, of course, received a great deal of negative attention lately, but it can be done ethically and transparently.

Customer service representative

Gone are the days of writing a strongly worded letter to complain about the service you’ve received from a company. Now we need only express our dissatisfaction in 140 words or fewer and fire it off to the company in question – and for the world to see.

Social media customer service representatives are there to ensure that customers feel heard when they have a complaint or a question, or want to give feedback. It’s their job to build rapport with customers, craft personal responses to their queries, and even invite their suggestions.

Public relations specialist

Public relations (PR) specialists cultivate and protect a company’s public image. As a social media PR specialist, you’ll be handling media enquiries put to the company through its social media accounts, writing and/or editing press releases and liaising with marketing to ensure that their content is consistent with the way the company wants to present itself.

You’ll also be keeping an eye on what people are saying about the company online, and identifying the areas in which its reputation could be improved. Sometimes this role can overlap with or encompass that of a customer service representative.

Marketing manager

Social media marketing managers plan and co-ordinate social media marketing campaigns. The job isn’t simply about airlifting a company’s old media advertising to the new media world; marketing managers in social media need to create and commission content that is going to play well online while keeping to the company’s marketing strategy and the feel of the campaign as a whole.

Once the campaign has been rolled out, the marketing manager is responsible for monitoring its performance and ensuring that any additional content is released at the correct time.

Copywriter/ graphic designer

As was touched upon above, new media needs new forms of advertising: enter copywriters and graphic designers who specialise in social media content. Copy for social media needs to do a lot with a little – the company’s voice needs to be audible, and it needs to be saying something, in a way that’s going to engage people.

Graphic designers who focus on social media work will be looking to do much the same thing through, for example, GIFs and short videos.