I get questions all the time from friends, parents, clients and our readers about how recent graduates can start a careers in Social Media.
For the purpose of this blog post we’ll assume that most people mean mean Social Media Marketing when they use the words “Social Media.”
We’ll start here:
(For email subscribers: If for some reason you cannot see the video above, click here to be brought to the original post online.)
General stuff:
- Be a good writer. Write…a lot. The more effectively you can communicate on the web, the more successfully you will cut through “the noise.”
- Read…a lot. This means blogs, and books. Topics should include: social media, marketing, culture and technology, and psychology and influence. If you haven’t read it, you should read (or re-read) How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie (all book links are amazon affiliate links…but they’re all damn good books)
- Realize that social media is quickly fading as a sole job function, unless you just want to be a community manager. It’s more important to look at how social tools fit into ANY type of job. What do these tools enable you to do?
Suggestion #1
Start with outcomes not activities.
Work backwards from the desired end result.
This will result in your career in social media being more thoughtful and strategic, rather than spontaneous and haphazard.
Suggestion #2
Frame the work you do in terms of the activities not the platforms.
While it’s important to identify the proper platform based on where the audience is, it’s more important to understand the value of the core activities that the social web enables.
What other advice would you offer? Sound off in the comments below. Best comment will win a free copy of Mitch Joel’s new book Ctrl + Alt + Delete.