Comments on: Social Media Strategist is a Real Job

By: New Site for Social Media Jobs

New Site for Social Media Jobs — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 05:56:17 +0000

[...] belong more under the (broader) category of “social media“? From when I published my Social Media Strategist is a Real Job post a few months ago and up until today I have not been aware of a social media site comparable to [...]

By: Specialist roles for social media wiz kids « wonderwebby

Specialist roles for social media wiz kids « wonderwebby — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:33:24 +0000

[...] recent post in Conversations matter breaks it down to several roles you could consider, including Social Media Strategist, Community Manager, Social Site Management, Blogging, Monitoring, and Web [...]

By: Des Walsh

Des Walsh — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:00:09 +0000

Jim: Good to hear you are having no trouble attracting business in this space. You may well be right on a theoretical level, that social media is a toolset, not a position, but if companies are advertising for positions including the descriptor “social media” surely the market has spoken. Personally I don’t care whether someone who wants to pay me for my services as a coach sees me as a blogging specialist or a social media specialist. It’s their starting point that is important to me, much more than the title I give myself currently. The fact is, for a number of people who ask me to help them, I’m “the blogging guy”. One of the things that reminds me of is that there are plenty of business people out there who are not part of this theoretical discussion – in fact, and obviously, and happily for us, more of them than there are of us.

By: Des Walsh

Des Walsh — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:53:11 +0000

Shailesh. I trust I’m right in taking your “are you being funny?” as a rhetorical question. But I’m not sure I get what you are telling us other than what I endeavoured to write about in the post. Are you reinforcing what I’m saying, that companies are paying money for employees and consultants to help them with social media strategy? Or something else?

By: Shailesh Ghimire

Shailesh Ghimire — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:19:22 +0000

I haven’t been on your blog all that log to know your style of writing but are you being funny? Companies are going all out these days for social media information and strategy development. I’ve been working in this space and I had to chance my focus from just blogging to social media so I could be more marketable. Blogging being a subset or component of social media.

By: Jim Durbin

Jim Durbin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:25:06 +0000

Des,

I think Business Coach and Blogging Consultant is the best title – we stuck with interactive marketing firm with an emphasis on social media for our tags, because social media is a toolset, not a position.

Do companies pay for this? Absolutely. We’ve been selling our services for over two years, and the question is never if, but when. They get the benefits, but don’t have the managers to understand how to judge someone’s performance. Unfortunately, a lot of companies just place interns or fresh college grads on the project, in the mistaken belief that a Facebook account = expert (or expert enough).

It’s a slower path to adoption than I first thought we’d see, but the good news is that the bill rates remain very high, so maybe that’s not a bad thing:)

By: Tom O'Brien

Tom O'Brien — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:17:28 +0000

I think you have it about right up above – in our world (MotiveQuest) the strategist must be able to reduce HUGE amounts of data to the underlying, hidden human motivations & drivers and competitive dynamic. This is then used as the raw material for providing our clients with actionable insight on the business challenge of interest.

TO’B
MotiveQuest LLC

By: Romain

Romain — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:26:05 +0000

Social Media strategist position is a real job that can generate real good communications feedbacks and indirect business development. But to do so, missions and objectives need to be clearly stated, as Jim Durbin says.
But what kind of abilities a Social media strategist should have? Think about something like inbetween Account planning and community management. What about you?
I’ve started the conversation here: http://tinyurl.com/6kxq4k

By: Account Planning + Social Media + Community management = Social media strategist role and activity - Fast.Fwd.Innov@tion

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:17:55 +0000

[...] as Des Walsh is telling in his post on Social Media Strategy, I too think companies are ready to pay for Social Media strategies. And more than that, we can see [...]