Hey, would anybody care to share what a social media job is really like? I do SEM and have no idea if I'd even like a job like that. Can you describe a day in the life? Does it get old, or is it always fascinating??? Thanks!

Web 2.0 Jobs: Brian Carter posted a message

“Hey, would anybody care to share what a social media job is really like? I do SEM and have no idea if I'd even like a job like that. Can you describe a day in the life? Does it get old, or is it always fascinating??? Thanks!”

June 29 at 4:55 pm - Link

Charles Balazs, Daniel Schildt, linkman77, saku7up and Ben Parr liked this

I know I had a blast at an undisclosed software company in Redmond...honestly, I did the security for a number of social web sites, and had the best time of my life doing that. Worked hard, played hard, challenging, and cool management to go along with it. Day in the life? Go to work, hack stuff, fix stuff, work with developers, take users who tell me there is an issue seriously, fix more stuff, break more stuff, go home. Did that help? - dan

I'm the community evangelist for Elastic Lab, a crowdsourcing film company -- basically I use social media to find people (amateurs to feature filmmakers) with an interest in film, and connect them with paying projects. I get paid to effectively pay other people for doing something they enjoy, which is pretty darn rewarding, and my familiarity with/presence on most social media sites meant EL had zero ramp-up time and gained credibility right off the bat, so this is a win-win... - Marina Martin

... that said, there's a critical difference between working for a company you love and one that you're so-so about (or worse, don't like). A social media job means you're inextricably linked to that company forever (Google never forgets), so choose wisely. I'm loving it, though! - Marina Martin

I agree totaly with Marina, it's great work if you love the company and awful if you don't. It's much more about personal relationships than traditional SEM and if you don't love what you're selling it's a long day. - Ruben Kenig

@Dan both Ruben and Marina make good points but I just want to highlight something Marina said that can be important in landing a 'good' social media job and that is "my familiarity with/presence on most social media sites meant EL had zero ramp-up time and gained credibility right off the bat, so this is a win-win". It was just kind of sandwich in there and glossed over and for me I think this is very important when making a hire. - Roger Kondrat