Just Because You Have A Myspace Page And Read Blogs…

An Excerpt From: Social Media Hiring – An Interview With Jason Falls

SocialMediaHeadhunter.com – June 1, 2008

“I love my space…”

7) A lot of people look at social media as an opportunity to escape their industries or start a new career path. Is knowledge of social media sufficient to get hired, or do [they] need specific business experience? If so, what do they need to know?

Well, just because you have a MySpace page and read blogs doesn’t make you qualified to work in social media. But, if someone is, say, a real estate agent and they’re all over the place with blogs, podcasts, social networking activity and so on, they wouldn’t be eliminated from consideration because what they’re doing is marketing themselves through social media. So, no, knowledge of social media isn’t sufficient to get hired. Understanding how to use social media to communicate messages to an audience is.

8) How did you decide on a salary range for this position. Would you compare it to similar positions (Account executive, SEO consultant, copywriter), or is it made up out of whole cloth? Any suggestions for salaries for different social media jobs a) Community Manager, b) Director, Social Media Marketing, c) Social Media Consultant (entry-level agency). ?

We based our salary more on our company structure than anything else. Relative to our client services team, our PR account team and our media department — all of which parallel our social media effort — an account manager makes a fairly predictable range. For the Louisville market and in very general terms, I’d put a $40K-$75K bracket around it, with senior account managers meeting and exceeding the high end of that. Understand that the salary would probably move up in different markets. I’ve heard of positions I would consider at a slightly lower level than what we hired for in Silicon Valley paying almost twice as much. But they also pay 3-4 times as much to just have a place to live. We did have several candidates from larger cities decline pursuit of the job because of the salary, which is understandable. But the cost of living in Louisville, our agency’s revenue model and thousands of other factors make what we were offering quite fair in our minds. We certainly did not see the average level of the talent pool drop because of the salary.

One thing I would add on salaries is that we don’t really have a strong grasp on what the value of social media really is. For now, that means we have to compare it to parallel positions. At Doe-Anderson, we see social media as a sister discipline to public relations, so we have a benchmark. Other organizations may see it falling more in line with interactive and digital marketing disciplines, but how can you adequately compare an ASP.net developer to a social media strategist? (I know, apples-to-oranges, but that’s really the point.) As the field matures, we’ll start to see long-term impacts of social media programs, tie-ins to bottom lines for revenue and, I think, a C-level awareness and understanding that, like public relations, you can’t be very successful without it. Then the salaries will become better defined.

a) A community manager (forum, message boards, blogs) is a customer service agent to me, but a specialized one. In the Louisville market, I can see these positions starting in the mid-30s and moving upwards of 60 or 70K, depending upon the size and scope of the community or brand.

b) Director of social media marketing is going to be akin to a director of public relations or marketing, in my mind. Again, in Louisville, this person would probably command a salary of 40 to 100K with non-profits and very small organizations on the lower end of that spectrum. The larger the brand or company, the higher the salary. There would even be a few in that position in Louisville that would make more than 100K as we have corporate headquarters for several very large companies here (Yum Brands, UPS, Humana, etc.) You could even make the argument that, for those large corporations, 150-250K wouldn’t be out of the question.

And a c) social media consultant, entry-level agency person I’m assuming would be an account manager or assistant account manager. Right out of college, I would think low to mid-30s to start. Temper that with the fact that I haven’t set salaries for more than a couple of positions in the social media field, however. That said, it’s probably two more than most people have.

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— Jason Falls is the Social Media Explorer, and can be reached on his blog.

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