“So, what do you do for a living?” asked the polite woman at a dinner party, as she leaned in, seemingly interested.
Hmmm…Do I tell her I have been an English teacher since 1998 but decided to take a break last year so I could spend more time with Little One? Do I tell her that I put teaching on hold indefinitely last year when I took on a job as a Social Media Community Manager?
“I work as a Social Media Community Manager”, I replied.
“Oh? And, what does that entail? What is that, exactly?”
I know what’s coming. The sideways glance. The “look”.
“Oh. You stay at home.”
“Not really. I work from home. I work out of my home office.”
“And, what do you do all day?”
Should I say I sit at home and watch soap operas all day while eating bonbons? Should I say it’s a meticulously orchestrated farce and though I maintain a semblance of “working” I’m actually making excuses for not cleaning the house? Do I tell her about running campaigns, digital marketing, and all of the “behind the scenes” work I do? It’s definitely more than just engaging with people online. That’s a large part of it, but not the extent of it. Then there are the virtual assistant jobs. It can get kind of complicated to explain since these jobs aren’t “traditional” jobs.
What on Earth does “I work in Social Media” Mean?
*sigh* This is the part that I dread people asking. Oh, I love my job. I just find it hard to explain to people who are not familiar with Social Media. I always get questions and statements like:
- “Oh. You get paid to blog, right?”
- “Oh! That’s fun! You write about things and get lots of free stuff, right?”
- “That sounds easy! I’m going to start a blog so I can get free things too!”
- “Explain it to me. I don’t get it. No, don’t. It’s too complicated for me to get my brain wrapped around.”
- “You get paid to tweet and FB all day?”
Honestly, it makes me want to bang my head on a wall sometimes. No, I don’t get “free stuff” all the time. I don’t just hang out on FB and Twitter all day. It’s not as easy as people think it is. There’s actually a lot more to social media than meets the eye.
Yes, I do have a blog. My blog is my outlet and a place for me to write. I love writing. Yes, I do receive sponsored post opportunities and I do some reviews and giveaways…and yes, the blog does generate a good monthly income for me. However, my main source of income is from Social Media Community Manager jobs, Project Management, and hosting Twitter parties, and other work. I have quite a few friends who make their living from their blogs, and who are incredibly successful. Through my blog, I’ve received some great opportunities, and the blog has taken me in a different direction than the one I began with. For a better understanding of what I do, this post over at SocialFish pretty much sums it up.
Here are the essential functions of a community manager
from SocialFish:
- Helpdesk
- Monitoring and Moderation
- Nurturing Engagement – nudging, ensuring questions have a response
- Marketing (internally) and Promotion (externally) of the community
- Training (staff and volunteers)
- Metrics and Reporting
- Identifying trends / topical market research
JOB DESCRIPTION: ONLINE COMMUNITY MANAGER
also from SocialFish:
- Oversees all technical and system administration aspects of the community. This includes working with the community platform vendor to address, resolve, and communicate any issues related to the features and functionality of the community; providing technical support to members and staff; implementing new community features as necessary.
- Works with Communications Manager to develop and implement community promotion and engagement strategies and tactics as they relate to the communications division and the organization’s strategic goals. Communicates and promotes new community features or procedures to members and staff.
- Develops and maintain community training resources, guidelines, and policies.
- Works with Social Media Specialist, Membership, Marketing, and other divisions to coordinate community postings as appropriate across the organization’s other digital channels.
- Monitors discussions, resource postings, and trends within the community. Identifies and reports trends in usage and advises on potential opportunities. Alerts Communications Manager and appropriate staff as issues arise and work with staff to resolve issues.
- Networks with community members and identify Community Champions. Train and empower Community Champions to participate ona more significant engagement level.
- Monitors and measures the success of community engagement (i.e. number of power users, number of discussions, etc.), and provides reports forCommunications Manager and executives. Identify and report on community trends to internal teams.
- Contributes to related communication vehicles and ensure the integration of community for promotion and awareness building.
- Coordinates with Marketing/Public Relations, Communications, Education, and Foundation and other divisions’ staff to ensure successful coordinated campaigns for communication, fund-raising, and education.
- Promotes and evangelize community activities internally. Provides internal and external community training as necessary.
Signs you work in Social Media?
- Your 4 year old child sees you putting on your shoes to head out the door and casually says, “Those are your Skechers, right Mama? It’s like walking on a cloud!” (A quote directly from my Skechers post here)
- 4 year old screams a warning at a dinner party: “DON’T TOUCH THE FOOD! We need to take a picture first! It’s for the blog!”
- 4 year old sees your boss on TV and screams, “Mommy! Mommy! It’s your boss! She’s on TV and she’s showing Latest and Greatest products for families!”
- You are on Twitter most of the day, prepared to announce, tweet, reply, answer at any given moment.
- You think and dream in 140 characters.
- You wake up from a nightmare that involves you sending out a tweet that doesn’t have correct information.
- You wake up from a nightmare that you sent a tweet out from the wrong account.
- You constantly check your Twitter feed to make sure the *bleep* doesn’t hit the fan and in event that it does, you make sure to address any issues promptly and as professionally as possible.
- Your smartphone has become an extension of your hand. A new limb, if you will.
- The sound of dozens of alerts and alarms, pings, beeps, bleeps don’t faze you, yet annoys all those around you.
- You have to schedule time to go “unplugged”.
- Your husband and child know that every time you grab your BlackBerry, it’s because you’re checking up on the Twitter feeds, emails, and other sites for work.
What do you say when someone asks you what you do and your job in Social Media entails? Do most people “get it”?
For a good laugh, check out 26 Signs You Work in Social Media over at Buzzfeed.
Love this post – made me laugh but it is so true. My kids often ask “is this photo going on facebook” did this product come from work? Do I have to test this! Is this one of your clients? Social Media is a wonderful world to be in and I am glad we get to work together! Hey we found each other on Social Media, what could be better than that!!!
I just spent a great amount of time laughing at your post and the Buzzfeed one, LOVE IT!! #9 “Trying to explain your job to your friends and family is like rocket science.” had me laughing so hard I had to walk away from the computer, lol.
Am so lucky that TheHubs gets it. He actually gets ticked off when people allude that I blog for “free stuff”, ’cause at the end of the day it isn’t free. Its a barter system, where we trade our time to promote/discuss their product.
If I’m speaking to a great-aunt/uncle whom hasn’t touched a computer since the days of commodore 64s, I tell them I’m in marketing when they ask what I do for a living. If I’m speaking to my parents friends, I say I’m a content/copy writer. If I’m speaking to my own friends, I tell them I blog, and boy is it hard work! 😉
It does drive me nuts that regardless of title, the moment you say, “I work from home.” People automatically put you in the “unemployed” category. Yeesh. There’s this idea that if you work from home you’re free to sit in front of the TV all day long. Or go out with them when they have the day off, ’cause you obviously have nothing better to do yourself (like getting paid for the work you’re supposed to do.) TheHubs, despite his understanding of how hard I work, occasionally wonders why I didn’t find free time to get the dishes done right away, or vacuumed the front hall while he was at work, and the simple answer is, “I was lucky to find time to breathe today.” *facepalm*
I have a hard time explaining what I do too. I usually just say I’m a stay-at-home mom… though I spend more time on my computer blogging! If I try to explain my blog, I sometimes say that it’s like writing and managing an online magazine. This weekend we were at a camp so I actually did mention my blogging to several people and handed out business cards – come check me out if you’re curious about what I do! 🙂 Hopefully it gets me some more readers! 🙂
My girls and Hubby are both well aware that pictures first, then we can enjoy! LOL. Most people think that I just get paid to blog and get free stuff and trips. But, they don’t actually know the hard work behind it. That I consider it my job and though I can be at home in my PJ’s, I am still putting in the work. Great post love, I miss you!
Such a great post Christine!! And it’s SO true! It can be so hard trying to explain to people what exactly it is we do. A lot of people don’t even know what I do, and I rarely even attempt to explain. Most don’t know I have a blog lol. You are such a SUPER busy person, and I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for you to explain what YOU do to people! Btw, I LOVE that picture of little one…because that’s what my family is like too lol!
Brandi:
So true! In my case, most people who don’t know what I do think I just have the blog and this is what I do. They’re not aware of my other jobs as community manager, virtual assistant, etc. I have to admit, if I didn’t know what social media was, I’d probably feel just as confused as the people who ask me questions.
LOL! So cute that your family is like that too! I don’t know if it’s cute or sad that my daughter won’t eat until photographs of the food are taken…or that she knows so much about social media at 4 years of age. She knows about FB, Twitter, the blog, etc. The other night, she hugged me and said, “Mommy, I love your blog.” LOL!
Christine, I love your blog post! If I tell people I’m a writer, they ask me which books I have written. If I tell people I’m a journalist, I have to direct them to the online newspaper I write for. If I tell people I work in social media, most people are not familiar with that terminology. If I tell people that I’m a blogger, I suddenly have become a bottom feeder in people’s eyes.
Jenna:
Thank you! 🙂 I hear you on all of that. I think the thing is that so many people are not familiar with the scope of what is involved in blogging and social media. Not to be funny, but it’s not taken “seriously”in most cases (at least that I’ve experienced). Those who are in it, know and understand. For those who aren’t, it’s still a foreign concept.
What a WONDERFUL interpretation of what we do in social media! You are so right – although I don’t do what you do exactly (What you do in social media is a HUGE commitment, kudos to you for being able to juggle it all!!!), I agree that it is so difficult explaining to others what we do. Sometimes I just give them the link and let them interpret it the way they want because they still have that look of uncertainty after I explain myself. I should just quote some of the points you so eloquently made here and send it in a group email to my family and closest friends! I’m still in awe at all your daily responsibilities!
DEBALINO:
What promoted this blog post was that very issue of friends and family (and the people that you meet when you’re walking on the street) not understanding what I do. It was so much easier to just write an explanation. Ahh…forgot to add “infographic” to the image I made! LOL!
lol we had this conversation the other day on Twitter, so you know I don’t have a good answer but with my youngest starting school this fall, I am constantly being asked if I am going back to work now. No one gets that I HAVE been working for the past three and a half years from home. That I make good money for ‘playing’ online and have a registered business with the government of Ontario. This is not a REAL job apparently.
Great post! I am also as you know in the same field. I get asked all the time. I sometimes just say it’s writing on line and managing the on line twitter and Facebook and Pinterest accounts.
And here, I think of myself as a bit savvy about this stuff, but really, I had no idea. I mean, I knew it was a LOT of work, and I know why I don’t try to add that on to my regular work, but I didn’t know exactly what the work might be like.
I have a ‘stay at home’ job, and people do sometimes think that means I don’t have work to do. And it does mean flexibility…I can take a walk with my daughter, go to the grocery store, or take a nap on my lunch hour. Or I can go downstairs and start dinner, then get another hour in, then go eat dinner, then get a few more hours in before bedtime. It’s great, and I love it. Except when I hate it because I don’t feel like I’m ever free…
J:
You’re right that there’s some flexibility in working from home. I have been feeling lately that I don’t have time for other things (like doing a deep clean of my house). I work from home, it doesn’t mean I’m at home with lots of time to do other things. I can explain it better saying that if I were to go to an office building to work and then come home after work, I wouldn’t get the same reactions and responses from people asking what I do. Instead, I have a home office, which completely baffles people. The concept to many is still so new.
I can totally relate to you though, J. I don’t feel like I’m free sometimes.
You know it used to irritate me as well lol Everytime someone would ask what I do for a living, I would say I was a “Blogger”. I stopped doing that after many people had a dumbfounded look on their faces after and of course the question… “what’s that? Hahaha With how tech savvy the world is now a days, you think people would know.
Now I just say I have a full time job as a freelance writer on the internet. I write product reviews and promote companies online on Social Media. They seem to understand better with that description. LOL
As far as people saying “oh you get all this free stuff” blah, blah, can you get me some”? That used to bother me too, however now I refer them to this post I found online and then they realise just how much work really goes into blogging and “getting free stuff” as they say.. It’s a huge eye opener for them. LOL!
MUST READ: http://eightymphmom.com/2011/06/bloggers-do-your-friends-want-free-stuff-too-here-is-what-to-tell-them.html
Tasha:
Oh my goodness! Thank you! I’ve read and have bookmarked that post you sent!!
Love love love this post! Everything you’ve said is not only true but is more and more a reality for me. I honestly don’t tell people that I blog very often because of the questions – I cannot even imagine what it would be like in your case when you blog and work in social media.
Kerrie:
I HAD to write this post because honestly, no one I know “gets” it. It’s so frustrating 🙁 lol At least I can make light of everything. It really is complicated and hard to understand –especially to those who don’t know what Twitter is. :p