Social Media is Not a Vocation

Agree with the term social media. But looking at the list above, it also clear that it isn't up-to-date.

If Social Media is a tool, what is the job function that uses it? Marketing? Yes and no. Sales? Maybe, PR, yes… and no.

The types of jobs listed above reflect a traditional style workplace where everything is siloed. Where marketing and sales are two different job functions.

We don't need “social media” as a job title, but we do need non-siloed job functions. Jobs that are about what we do, not where we are physically located in the organization.

Good post. Your comment “they quit their job to pursue a career in social media” is something I hear too. Not good! Social media should be part of a strategy to achieve a goal, not a goal in and of itself.

Mike

I looked up the term vocation to make sure I was getting it right – A vocation, represents a task with intrinsic positive marginal utility (satisfaction) associated with it – meaning that you can enjoy doing it for its own sake. Contrary to getting a Job or making a career in Social Media, I think that adopting social media as a mindset is a positive first step for then applying the tools to good use. What happens too often is that we learn the tools but never have the mindset, dedication or change to apply them properly.
And what I've always found strange, is that even Innovation can be vocational, and its also not part of Linkedin categories.

I have to agree with Susan Murphy, “Social Media” is a Buzzword created so everyday people can understand the difference between Social Sites and the Internet and traditional Marketing. Don't get me wrong I love the power of Social Media, but I am completely over Social Media Gurus.

I go to a lot of Local Networking Events and unfortunately run into a lot Social Media Professionals. They always try to pitch me on how they can set up a facebook page or get me 100 more hits a day… Its all BS. Social Media is a Communication, Education, and Marketing tool and that is just a few of its uses. Exactly as you said Chris, its a tool to do larger things… Its not a Verb, you can't “Social Media”. You can Market to a Group, You can Communicate with someone, You can Educate, But you can't Social Media someone…

Great thought Chris…

Ryan H., http://www.RyanHanley.com

There are people looking for jobs in social media just as they look for jobs in marketing or journalism, probably because no one really knows where to put these types of jobs. As to whether or not social media is a vocation in itself, I think that's kind of a fuzzy area for most. Social Media is still new enough that many people still aren't sure how to use it in examples. ( I still wonder why so many of us use it in the singular when media is plural, but that's a whole other argument…). Personally if I had to list an area for these types of jobs, I'd choose communications (and when I went to school this was a broad term for “Journalism”) or marketing.

So many people don't even know how to explain social media, let alone classify it for a job listing.

I tend to disagree here. Social media is at the point where websites were 10 years ago. Businesses were expected to have a web site, and the new career, web page designer, came up. Perhaps adding a noun on the end, like “consultant,” or “specialist,” would make it clearer; but I believe social media (or the use thereof) can be a vocation, especially if one is doing it for money.

And frankly, I don't think it's anything new, Twitter reminds me of a big chat room, except you get to choose who enters your room while your message goes out to anyone who wants to listen. And it's not a question of who's got the loudest megaphone, it's a question of who uses Twitter and Facebook wisely, and to their advantage, without making it seem like they're trying to sell you something. I'd say having that level of finesse warrants its own job title.

While part of me wants to say you can break any career or job down into its tools, what I think Chris is saying here is that it's hard to develop a toolbox into a career without tons of experience, hard work and effort. You can't throw a couple of hammers into a box and declare yourself a contractor or carpenter and expect to start commanding master craftsman rewards. You have to know how to use the tools like a craftsman and become an expert. Sometimes, people gain some of that expertise through training and school- med school and law school come to mind. (There are a few certificate programs for social media and online marketing, like the one through the University of San Francisco).
Many of the current experts in the field right now became experts not through school alone, but by using the tools and learning to wield them more like a scalpel and less like a chain saw over time.

If you want a career in social media, you have to have what every good artisan has- a portfolio. Your blog, for example, shows that you can build an audience, and that you can write. It shows your opinions. It shows maybe that you can produce decent audio and video. If you have a decent following on other social networking sites, it shows that others are interested in your ideas. All of these skills, of these pieces, forms a bigger picture of your abilities, rather than just being able to set up a Twitter and Facebook account, which any eight year old can do. (And the only reason they might need to wait that long is so they become better at typing and spelling).
If you are considering a career in Social Media, make sure you understand what tools you need in your toolbox and that you can demonstrate your skill with those tools. You need to be wielding the tools more like an artisan and less like a camp craft project involving Popsicle sticks and too much glue. Otherwise, what makes you different from any high school senior with a Facebook account?

Peter Drucker, the business guru, wrote about management as a “practice”, in the way that doctors practice medicine. I am passionate about management and managers, which is why I am a management consultant. My consulting practice is dedicated to making better managers.
I think social media can absolutely be a professional “practice”. Chris, you are surely a practicing doctor of all things social media; you write, assess, diagnose, prescribe, cure and even save lives, (I'm sure)! If this was an alternate ending for the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard would give you a white coat with your name on it.

The business of chrisbrogan.com is anything but publishing, Chris. You have a specific niche you write about, you don't write about everything under the umbrella of publishing. If you walk into a bookstore and browse their selection of publishing titles, you don't write about the content in those books. You write stuff that a bookstore might categorize under marketing, entrepreneurship, and travel.

I know countless people who have quit their jobs to do SM Marketing and I don't get it – HOW do you make a living?? I teach my clients how to market their businesses with Social Media as part of an entire Internet Marketing Strategy – website, blog, newsletters etc…. I would like to see an example of someone actually making a living as a Social Media Marketer – and I don't mean a “coach” or “guru.”

You might have misunderstood: chrisbrogan.com is a publishing project. I publish. I write stories. I don't write ABOUT publishing. It's classified as a publishing project.

Sorry for the confusion.

I think the “with” “in” is an American/British thing. When people in the states say “I work in real estate,” it means that they're “in the field of” real estate.

As for the rest, you're not wrong that it might possibly mature to be its own subcategory, but do you think it'll ever be a standalone?

My favorite: Typepad used to always flag “blog” as an incorrect word in their spell check!

There is a reason you don't see “e-mail” on that list either.

When the dust settles, social media will become an integral part of how we do business. For marketers, understanding where it fits within an organization it will no longer be an option, but a requirement.

At least that's where I see things going.

Hope you're well, Chris.

Social media is a set of tools, and using it requires a set of skills, but the question you pose is do those skills constitute a job or career by themselves. I liken them as you do to tools on a tool belt. In this case there are literal tools, such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, while at the same time there are skills associated with the practical use of those tools, and soft skills associated with the how to use them side of things.

A person could be an expert in hands on side and be clueless about using them to market an idea. I've seen more often market minded folks bringing their strategies over to these new tools.

Karen Goodman, aka @KarenStL, is a St. Louis Realtor who has made solid use of Twitter, Facebook, and blogging to increase her business and the visibility to that business. She started off with ideas on the ways she wanted to use the tools, but found she needed to learn the practical how to use them. I was fortunate to be there to show her that the twitter service was just that, and clients are the tools to use it, and prompt her to add those to her tool belt.

I've decided teaching the tools is just being an educator with a niche market. Not unlike those teaching Microsoft application use.

There's a whole other topic to talk about how best to use Twitter.

Cheers,
Todd

Looks like it's also a great self-promotion tool as well… ;-)

Chris,
You've long been one of my favorite thinkers and one of my favorite writers in the social media sphere. 90+% of the time, I wholeheartedly agree with your excellent reasoning and the conclusions you reach. However, what you seem to be saying in this particular post is that “Social media isn’t a vocation unless Linkedin *SAYS* it's a vocation.” If so, in this particular instance I must disagree with you. And I'll tell you why:

1. While it's an incredibly popular platform, I don't think that Linkedin's categories as they are currently structured are sufficient to determine what is and what is not a vocation for all its 70 Million members. As it's currently structured Linkedin's categories FORCES many to describe themselves as something which they wouldn't describe themselves as outside of the Linkedin platform

2. Linkedin's categories don't perfectly line up with nor can they handle every job classified in more Standard career classification systems such as the Bureau of Labor Statistic's Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), 2010-11 Edition ( http://www.bls.gov/oco/ )

3. RHETORICAL QUESTION: If your job/advocation/career is not listed in Linkedin's categories does that mean you don't have the job you say you do and by which you currently earn your income?

4. #3 leads to this question: Is Linkedin's categories *SYSTEMATIC enough* and *FLEXIBLE* enough to account for and to keep up with the accelerating abundance of job types being generated by the laid off/unemployed/under-employed globally-based professionals seeking to re-brand and market themselves during these challenging times?

I disagree Chris. The fact that companies hire social media managers, the fact that there are professional meetings focused specifically around social media suggests that social media is a vocation and an industry. What I see you focus on, and what many people focus on is social media as technology, but you ignore the social aspects of it, and how important those social aspects are in really using the medium.

Social Media is an integral part of the Internet Marketing vocation. Some day, as social media sites grow in complexity and become more difficult to manage, I believe it will become its own vocation.

Right now, however, its more limited scope makes it just one in a myriad of different marketing strategies used to utilize the Internet as a marketing tool. If someone describes their entire career as Social Media, they are limiting the scope of what they can do.

It's best to have writing skills, PPC skills, SEO skills and social media skills and say you have a career in Internet Marketing.

That being said, there are a lot of vocations not listed on LinkedIn.

I would say yes, social media could be considered a vocation. However for most people it would be hard to make it so. That may be the reasons companies don't add it to their vocation categories, I would bet there are a lot of self proclaimed social media experts.

Social media in its present form is a vocation. Just like record pressing was a vocation. And just like publishing is a vocation.

Whether social media is a long-term viable vocation is another question.

Well, of course social media isn't a vocation. I'm not even sure it's a good term to describe the technology, much less the cottage industry that's sprung up around the technology. And I'm not sure even “marketing” is a true vocation, in the sense of “a deeply personal, spiritual calling to a particular kind of work.”

My vocation is teller of tales and investigator of mysteries.

Since there's only one Renaissance Faire here in Kentucky, the most literal and direct translation of “storyteller” didn't seem like a career path with a great deal of promise. Advertising is a nice application of the vocation of telling stories. It pays the bills better than the RenFaire, I can tell you.

I also sort of missed the boat on getting my Private Investigator's license (and I'm pretty sure the reality of that application of “investigator of mysteries” is not as much fun as Moonlighting made it seem back in 8th grade.)

So there is a piece of advertising and marketing and “social media” that is about investigating the mystery of consumer behavior. Which is the direction I'm going to be heading soon.

My point is, if “social media” crashes and burns, I'm going to be okay. Even if the whole advertising thing did a swirly–I'd find another application of “storyteller and investigator” and be just fine.

It's about knowing who you are, and finding ways of getting paid to be that.