Thursday, July 29, 2010

Some Thanks for the Thankless

Social media jobs definitely have their ups and downs, but it's nice to see some love for the folks who are fighting the good fight and blazing trails for the rest of us. If customer service is a thankless job, how about a customer service job that you can never escape from, that requires attention 24/7--AND includes the added task of getting internal buy-in from the top down?

If you live in the DC area, you surely remember the back-to-back blizzards of 2010 and of course the near-tornado of a few days ago, all of which wreaked havoc on the power supply to tens of thousands of Pepco customers. The Washington Post just did a really nice story about @PepcoConnect, aka Andre Francis (or I guess it should be the other way around!). If you think you want a social media job, you should definitely read the article to see the kind of pressure and jabs it entails. But I've always been impressed by Andre, who I've been following since my power was out during the blizzard, and was happy to see him at least get a little fame out of what I'm sure have been a nightmarish few days.

@Comcastcares Frank Eliason is another one who's gotten some well-deserved media props during his tenure at Comcast. So much so that it no doubt paved the way for his new job heading up social media at Citi. I love this goodbye video his coworkers at Comcast made:



Yes, there is some suck to social media careers--especially if you're a woman--but maybe the rock-star quotient takes some of the sting out.

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