How Much Do YOU Make As A Social Media Professional?

I seem to be getting an increasing amount of traffic through people searching for information about social media salaries. Not at all surprising because there is precious little information out there about social media salaries. As I've blogged before, social media jobs in general are an enigma...titles are all over the place, from VP Digital Strategy to Intern to Community Manager. Now David Meerman Scott created a new one: Social Media Administrator. And my association friend Elizabeth Weaver Engel just came up with a great one: Chief Community Officer.

About the only definitive thing I've found recently regarding social media salaries is Forum One Networks' Online Community Compensation survey from 2008. You have to purchase the report to view it but can get a complimentary summary; basically the summary says that the average annual survey for participants was $81k. They just completed the 2009 version, which should be available within the next few months.

Granted, there is (or maybe not?) some difference between online community manager and social media what-have-you, so perhaps this data doesn't 100% correlate with the average "social media doer", as Jim Durbin calls it. To me, this is the main problem with social media jobs: there is no consistency with position titles, so how can there be any consistency with regard to salaries? There may be very little difference between what a VP, digital strategy and social media coordinator do, but you can bet the salaries are probably vastly different. I know--you're reading that sentence thinking "duh--of course it's a different job"--but actually, don't assume so quickly that it is.

Think that a social media "doer" is just leaving comments on Facebook or tweeting? Maybe in some cases; but in others they are doing a lot of the same things--if not the exact same things--as the people in the higher-level jobs. People assume that the lower the title, the less strategy the person is involved in, but that's not necessarily true at all. This is my exact point: title and what the position encompasses may well be two entirely different things with social media jobs.

As if it weren't already confusing enough--this whole mess with the titles and compensation--doing social media for an association adds a whole new level of ambiguity. The position is so new that ASAE has no benchmarks for it yet, thereby leaving the whole thing to the discretion of each individual association to decide which position they think most closely correlates with social media whatever they're choosing to call it. PR manager? Communications director? Marketing assistant? In my case, it was benchmarked against web content coordinator and PR representative. It remains to be seen what associations end up doing on the whole when it comes to staffing their social media initiatives.

I'd love it if anyone reading this would weigh in with any salary information they have, either for their own social media position or others they've heard about. Feel free to leave your comment anonymously if you don't want to reveal your identity.

**UPDATE**
To add to the confusion and fun, I've tracked down some more social media salary info to add to the pot:

SimplyHired average social media salary: $55,000
Indeed average social media salary: $79,000
Salary.com: no results for "social media"

Does A Social Media Job = Career Suicide?

Geez, talk about a downer of a blog post: according to Jim Durbin of Social Media Headhunter, I am in a total dead-end job. As a social media specialist, I am what he calls a "social media doer" and "A social media doer is not a position with career advancement."

He makes some very valid points--points I myself have blogged about before. And as depressing-ish as his post is (especially to current social media job holders), I admit it's sort of a refreshing change from the constant deluge of social media is the second coming stuff we read about all the time.

What do you think--is he right and I and others like me--social media doers--are ultimately going to be SOL for having chosen this career path? And, also-- do you think it's kind of counterintuitive that a social media recruiter is blogging about how you don't actually want the kind of job he can help you get?

Why A Social Media Career Might Not Be As Great As You Think

My kids love to snicker about my job: I'm a social media & community specialist. I kind of though they'd think it was cool that their mom gets paid to be on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all the time, but of course I was wrong. They think it's not a "real" job.

Not surprisingly, many people feel this way...and sometimes I have to say I question the long-term validity of my own career choice.

Why? Let me list just a few reasons:

• Your livelihood rests in the hands of web services that are out of your control. If part of your job as a social media person is justifying your existence by virtue of stats like click-throughs on links, what happens when the service you're using ceases to exist and that data is gone? Or when you're doing a demo on the importance of Twitter for the Board of Directors and the site is down? What if Facebook decides you're a spammer and shuts your page down? When you are a social media professional, the tools of your trade are, for the most part, free services with no stable business model. Doesn't exactly instill confidence that social media is a rock-solid career choice, does it?


• You can do no right. People have very strong feelings about the "right" and "wrong" ways to use social media. Everyone knows you can't please all people all the time, but because the nature of social media is about real-time and transparency and, well, being "social" you're going to hear about anything customers or members or fellow social media professionals think you're doing wrong. Look at the American Cancer Society--who would ever diss them? I mean, who could find anything wrong with a campaign called "More Birthdays"? Celebrities endorse it, people dedicate their birthdays to finding a cure for cancer--who could find fault with that? Well, the answer--with all things social media--is, inevitably, someone. Or millions of someones if you're that unlucky. With social media it's anyone's guess as to what people will find brilliant and viral and what people will consider to be intrusive and spammy. So when a campaign inevitably goes wrong, who takes the fall? The "expert" who came up with the idea in the first place.


• It's anybody's guess as to what the value of your position is. For all the talk about "transparency" in social media, it's hard as hell to figure out what people get paid to do social media as a profession. How do I know? Because I've blogged about it before--and because an increasingly significant portion of my blog traffic comes from Google searches for "social media salaries." I've noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of traffic referred by that search recently--which is no coincidence as more and more companies are beginning to hire social media professionals. Here's the thing, though: for the same skill set and basic job description you've got salaries all over the map. Some companies are using free interns while others are paying consultants top dollar...all to perform the same basic function. It doesn't help that the titles for social media positions are all over the place; creating social media job titles is like playing word jumble. Pick two or more terms from the following: community, social media, manager, coordinator, new media, digital, strategist, director, specialist, vice president, expert. Now benchmark the resulting position for salary. Or spin the roulette wheel--both strategies are probably equally accurate.


• Your position is seen as experimental at best. While many people see the value of social media, many more do not. In times of economic crisis, having the words "Facebook" and "Twitter" in your job description is kind of a liability. You are most likely going to be called upon to prove your worth on an ongoing basis, and, at some companies, unless you can figure out a way to demonstrate immediate, traditional ROI, you might not want to get too comfortable at your desk. Best case scenario, you get to keep your job and are doomed to explaining, on an ongoing daily basis, exactly why Twitter and Facebook are not stupid.

Ok--your turn--feel free to add your own reasons social media jobs might not be all they're cracked up to be.

Why Every Stay-Home Mom Needs to Be On Facebook

A few weeks ago I went to a bingo night at school, arranged by the PTA. PTA isn’t really my thing, but any form of gambling is, so I went. After bingo (I didn’t win once in 21 games—go figure why I love gambling) I went out for drinks with a group of moms.

When we were leaving the restaurant, somehow the conversation turned to Facebook. I had recently made Facebook converts of a few of them and they were raving about it.

Then one woman said “My husband says if I have time to waste on Facebook I need to get a job.”

Ok, so Facebook might be a time toilet and of debatable merit in many ways—what with the poking, smile invitations, Lil’ Green Patch requests and all the rest of it. But the larger truth is that Facebook is a social media tool, and being familiar with social media tools is far from a waste of time--especially for women who have given up or postponed their careers to be home with kids.

I'll spare you the rant about how hard it is for women to re-enter the workforce after taking time off to raise kids; suffice it to say that clawing your way back up the career ladder is a LOT harder than climbing down. Chances are, while you're home raising kids, the world and the workforce are marching on, leaving a thick layer of dust on your resume.

Think about it, though: what if there was a career you could actually build from scratch, for free and in your spare time at home? Guess what? There is one.

While the title varies, the occupation I'm talking about is social media or community manager (for our purposes I'll call it social media manager). I was prepared to write a whole treatise about how social media careers are on the rise, but found this great post that sums it up better than I could.

Want to be a social media manager? Here's what you do:

• Start a blog. Not only will you familiarize yourself with blogging platforms, terminology and applications (widget, tags, comments, Digg, Technorati, etc, etc...) but you'll build a portfolio of writing samples.


• Get on Facebook and Twitter and every other social network you can. Granted, you'll probably only be able to (or want to) keep up with a few, but it's a good way to familiarize yourself with social networks--what they are, which ones are useful for what and what all the crazy little icons mean.


• Read. Read blogs, articles, books, magazines, newspapers--anything about social media. The beauty of social media as a career is that it's basically a brand new field; therefore the only things separating you from the "experts" are a few thousand blog posts. Everything you need to know about social media is out there; this is one area where grad school is not only not necessary but actually detrimental. The world of social media is evolving so rapidly that it requires constant, ongoing learning, not classwork. Think of it as a never ending learning experience--but in a good way.


• Network. Social media offers the unique opportunity to actively network without ever having to have so much as one face-to-face conversation with anyone. Not that there's anything wrong with actual personal interaction, but when it's not an option because of time constraints, social networks can help you connect with people who will be able to help you get a job when the time comes.

I could have included much more detail--told you which blogs to read, which people to follow on Twitter, which social networks to familiarize yourself with, but figuring out the answers to these questions is part of your social media self-education so I'll leave the details to you.

So next time your husband accuses you of wasting time on Facebook, tell him that you're actually laying the foundation for your social media career and to leave you alone.