Social Media Mangers – Schmedia Managers
OK, having a Social Media Manger seems to be in Vogue these days. I have seen the ads for some of them with absolutely ludicrous requirements. I know I have been laughing my ass off just reading the want ads for them and you can bet Gary Vaynerchuk is as well. I want to share some of the joy with you here.
First off, the biggy seems to be a Journalism Degree or even better yet an MBA. Really? How or why that one is relevant is beyond me and actually it is totally irrelevant as I will show you.
What they should be asking is, do you have the ability to communicate in 140 characters or less and do you send out a minimum of 1,000 to 5,000 texts a month? This one is obvious as Twitter is a huge part of social media.
Here at two sample out takes from ads that are laughable. These are from a REAL ads… LOL
Completion of an advanced degree (e.g. MA, MPH, MJ, MBA) and six (6) or more years of relevant experience
* 7+ years traditional media experience working for industry-leading company with significant media budgets in the area of digital marketing.
Wow, since Twitter has only been around for 3 years and Facebook did not really get going until about 2007 tell me how you pull off that 6 or more years of relevant experience ? This is not traditional media either. Can you say Clueless?
A High School Dropout And Grandma Are More Qualified Than An MBA
There were more like this but this is an example of why most companies Social Media SUCKS. Give me an 18 year high school dropout that has 20,000 followers on Twitter and Texts all day or or 72 year old Grandma that has a huge circle of friends that she stays in touch with and they are going to be more qualified than a dooffus that has spent the last six years learning from text books that were out of date 3 months before they went to print from professors who don’t know what the word profit means. Yea… cool… let me hire 5 of them please. ..NOT.
Both the high school dropout and Grandma have better suited skills than the MBA by far with proper supervision. They know how to communicate on a one on one basis and have practical experience doing so.
Old Media Skills Will Get You Killed In Social Media
Social Media is a whole different ball game and unfortunately most companies are clueless as to why. This is not traditional media and the skills used in old media will get you killed in Social Media.
This is about one on one interaction. It is direct marketing pure and simple and there are very few really good direct marketers out there. Which is why most Ad Agencies suck at Social Media.
But, if you are clued into this, that is good news for you! Because it gives you the ability to clean the clock of the clueless out there. Social Media gives a single Mom who is running her business out of her bedroom the chance to go up against multi-national companies and win!
This gives a single Mom who is running her business out of her bedroom the chance to go up against multi-national companies and win!
Seriously, if you know how to engage your customers via Social Media, you will win out against the MBA’s and especially the Ad Agencies that are running Social Media for their clients. They don’t get it either. But Ad agencies as a whole is a complete other clueless story. 🙂
There have been some notable disasters recently where Interns and other silly people have been turned loose on Social Media for clients and cause huge problems because they were clueless and yet had the power to cause a public relations disaster with one little Tweet.
Don’t Fall Victim To CTS
The Red Cross, Chrysler, and Kenneth Cole have all fallen victim to the Clueless Tweet Syndrome or what I am calling CTS. CTS is bad, very bad.
Which brings me back to my main point. If you are a small shop, spend a couple of weeks figuring out a Social Media game plan and then use common sense and you can and will beat the big boys.
If you can afford it, hire a really good, and I do mean good Social Media consultant and outsource your Social Media to someone that actually knows what the hell they are doing. You can get a real expert team for less than it costs to hire a single Social Media person and you can hit the ground running the right way. For less than $2,500 a month you can get an expert team in to do things right if you want a complete turn-key experience. If you are small company, you can get started for about 10% a month or $249. Well, at least that is what I charge. Contact me here if you need help or have questions about your Social Media. I will give you a free 15 minute session.
With Social Media being a necessity and not an option if you want to stay competitive, if you get your act together here you can own your niche and it is a totally level playing field. This is one of the few areas of life where size does not matter.
I am going to give you two qualifications that can really nail down someone that you may want to bring on board if you do decide to go ahead and hire someone.
If you are a regular reader, you know that I am friends with Marilyne Woodsmall who is the author and creator of Personality Language ™ and which is the most advance behavior modeling tool in existence.
Using Personality Language ™ testing you need to find someone under the Motive People Pattern that is an Affiliation Type and under Primary Interest pattern a People Type.
Those two qualifications should knock out 90% of the people out there and help you zero in on someone that can actually do the job well. And as to hiring, if you are going to hire someone internally, you need to be using Personality Language ™ testing. It is by far the best set of indicators that I know of for sure.
But the bottom line is this. If you can afford it, find and hire a qualified Social Media consultant to set up your game plan and acquaint you with what you need to get going correctly. Then you if you want bring in your own people to manage it great. But, make sure the people you hire have real qualifications such as empathy, good texting ability, good communications skills, and know marketing as well as having common sense. A tall order I know.
10 REAL Qualifications For A Social Media Manager…
- Must be comfortable texting and show a minimum of 1,000 texts a month
- Must have been on Twitter and Facebook for a year minimum and have over 100 friends and followers and been active on a regular basis
- Must have good marketing and sales skills. This is important. Your Social Media in order to be effective must have a game plan
- Must be empathetic and a good listener
- Must be great at problem solving and thinking on their feet
- Must have a pleasant personality and enjoy interacting with people
- Must be creative
- Must have a clue and common sense (there are some tests for this)
- Must be positive minded and have a Move Toward rather than a Move Away From motivation pattern
- Must be able to type
That is it, schooling, experience, and age do not really matter. Really…
Follow what I have listed above and you will be ahead of the herd and your competition.
Cheers,
Andrew Anderson
Social Media Consultant 🙂
PS Contact me here if you need help or have questions about your Social Media. I will give you a free 15 minute session and answer as many questions as I can. This is not a sales call but just honest to goodness free info for you. I want to see you succeed.