Have you ever seen an open position for a social media marketer (may it be a coordinator, specialist, expert or manager level), where the job description simply does not have an end? Welcome to my life! I constantly see job offers or offers for freelancers for such positions and I am amazed of the industry’s ignorance on what it truly is being a social media marketer nowadays. The list of responsibilities is huge including content creation, graphic design, copywriting, videography, e-mail marketing, SEO, website maintenance, communication with clients and more. And the most common response from social media marketers to such offers is “Companies have teams of people doing what you’re asking” or “This is not a single position and it should be split into a few separate positions”.
Now, I personally, have lived through the nightmare and the delight of being a one-woman show while working at an agency, while working for a client and even now – being freelance. However, each situation had its own ups and downs and lessons to be learned. And since I feel that recently within the industry people simply do not want to understand what lies behind our job, I feel obligated to voice it out.
There are many subcategories in the field of digital marketing and each aspect has its own tricks, knowledge, strategies and execution procedures. It’s like everything else in life. You can only be great at so many things, but you cannot do it all at the same high level of quality. I am not saying there aren’t experts that are not good at everything or that you cannot learn every corner of the industry – I’m saying that it takes time, effort, learning and experience and that we as human beings also have certain capacities. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a totally different science than content creation and it requires a different set of skills and knowledge. Instagram marketing is completely different than Google advertising as well. As a client, you need to break it down to the essentials for every consideration of opening a position for a digital marketer and focus on the platforms and activities that are your priorities.
I think there is a general misconception about what digital marketing encompasses and what social media marketing really is. From personal experience and from all the job postings and interviews that I have gone through until now, I can differentiate the two in a very simple way: a social media marketer is a digital marketer that deals only with social media platforms. What does that actually mean? Digital marketing is the general area that many different professionals work in. Some of them specialize in SEO, others in content marketing, digital advertising etc. However, social media marketing is limited to all activities that are within and focused only on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest… I personally would include Google as well, although I put that platform in its own category. However, activities such as SEO, website creation and maintenance, SEM (Search Engine Marketing), native advertising, premium digital banner ads and e-mail marketing are also part of digital marketing that are outside the scope of social media.
Although each aspect of digital marketing is related to other sub-categories in the field, it is wise to draw the line between digital and social media marketing. The logic stands behind the general activities performed in different aspects. Whereas social media platforms also differ from one another, the main activities that a marketer performs on them are similar – content creation, profile management, community management, ads. The nature of other digital marketing efforts is just totally different in terms of logic and activities from social media efforts.
Let’s take a look at two examples of the one man/woman show within the industry from both sides – the digital advertising agency life and the digital marketing in-house corporate atmosphere. I will be speaking from personal experience here, so feel free to disagree with me in the comments
You’re a digital marketing specialist in an advertising agency. This can go one of two ways. The agency is quite big and you have a full team of people, where everyone specializes in a different area. That is great when having a lot of clients, resources and financial stability to support a whole team. The benefit here is that you have human capital to cover all types of projects and if you’re team are experts in what they do, quality should not be a problem. Unfortunately, very often when agencies are growing, quality drops. Hiring new talent in our field is a bit tricky and very often you get unexperienced people that you put in charge of projects either with no supervision or just because you have a great volume of tasks and no time to manage everyone.
Scenario two might be more familiar to a lot of freelancers or professionals that have worked in smaller agencies. You run the show, you execute it, you make the best out of the resources that you have and in most cases you have to be a producer, filmmaker, performance specialist, content creator, account manager, accountant, legal advisor and whatnot. This is where digital marketing specialists burn out way quicker and quality might be compromised at times, because you have one person doing it all.
Seeing the crazy-dynamic life at an agency I thought (probably like many of you), that working in-house will be better. Less stress, focus on one company and its products and services, more resources, budgets…Boy, was I wrong! What I have noticed (particularly in Bulgaria), inhouse positions might be worse. If you go to a big company you are faced with all corporate processes and bureaucracy that are slow and full of defects. You might be executing some of the activities in social media marketing, or all of them, but in most cases big campaigns are outsourced to an agency that you will be managing on top of your other responsibilities. Your professional life is full of reports on top of reports and one simple decision might take consulting with more than 3 levels above you. Not to mention that in most digital marketing positions in-house you deal not only with social media, but all internal systems, e-mail marketing, website maintenance, and God knows what else. The benefit however is that you get to expand your expertise and also see the industry from the eyes of a client this time, which truly is an “eye-opening” experience.
After seeing the industry at 360 degrees I personally think that every professional should be able to see both sides of the coin and decide for themselves what do they prefer. In my case, as in the case of many others, neither side was pleasing enough. This is the third branch – going freelance. Being your own boss is, yes, amazing, but do not take it lightly. It requires specific personal characteristics to be able to keep it going and to keep it going successfully. And success doesn’t come overnight. You have to enjoy being a one-person show, but on your own terms. In the aspects that you are good at and want to work in. You have to be patient, strong-willed and ready for rejection. Loads of rejection and mistakes. Which I think is the best way to learn, grow and prosper.
If you’re interested to work in the sphere, do not despair. It’s an industry full of opportunities and benefits. Be courageous and take the next step in your professional development. There will always be something unknown, but do not be afraid to make mistakes or to have unpleasant experiences. In every bad situation that I have encountered in my professional career until now, I have found that I’ve learned tremendously more when making a mistake or seeing how things are not supposed to run.
Please, do not be afraid to speak up! We cannot expect things to get better, while we keep our thoughts to ourselves. Share your stories, experiences and opinions and at one point we might be able to change the status quo. Since I know I am not the only one having experienced all sorts of things working in this industry, I do welcome each and every story! Make sure to contact me, whether it’s on social media, the comments below, or via e-mail. I would love to hear your story and feature it on my website!
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Have you ever seen an open position for a social media marketer (may it be a coordinator, specialist, expert or manager level), where the job description simply does not have an end? The list of responsibilities is huge including content creation, graphic design, copywriting, videography, e-mail marketing, SEO, website maintenance, communication with clients and more…
3 Comments
I know how it feels working on social media by yourself
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. This is very informative.
May I just say what a comfort to find a person that truly understands
what they’re discussing online. You certainly know how to bring an issue to
light and make it important. More people should read this and understand this side of your
story. I was surprised you are not more
popular since you definitely possess the gift.