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How to Get a Job in Social Media

finding-employment-social-mediaBy Adrienne Erin
Online Career Tips, Contributor

The role of social media in business is becoming increasingly relevant, both in startups and mainstays. Even major U.S. companies formed in the 1800s, like Colgate and Brooks Brothers, use social media frequently. It’s no longer considered an emerging field or one that is unique to tech-savvy startups, but rather a necessary aspect of marketing and PR in most businesses. With the essential nature of social media in business at an all-time peak, there are a variety of job openings that deal with social media. In today’s tough economy, learning how to get a job in social media requires multiple steps, but none that are overly difficult to achieve:

Monitor Your Favorite Brands

It will be difficult to nab a social media job at one of your favorite companies, since the current job market isn’t for pickers and choosers, but you should still follow them avidly on social media.

For example, if you did previous business with a DC web design firm and found they had a large number of social media followers; then it would be a good practice to analyze their social media strategies. Ask yourself: How do they engage users on Facebook? How do they generate re-tweets on Twitter? Is their tone friendly or professional?

Especially if you choose to analyze the social media account of a successful business in your desired niche, you’ll have an upper hand on what social media tasks to accomplish when you get hired.

Freelance or Intern for Smaller Businesses to Gain Experience

Social media expertise is tricky to acquire, because unlike building Web sites or writing it is difficult to practice without a valid following. This is why freelancing or interning, sometimes for free, for a rising business in need of a social media guru is practical. Think of it as a beneficial internship in several ways; you gain a recommendation, and are able to test out the social media strategies you learned in the previous step without putting an employer at risk.

Before you acquire a paid social media gig, practicing via an internship is recommended, even if it’s unpaid. There are a number of sites that can help with finding a suitable internship; here are a few recommendations from The Huffington Post.

Take a Class

If you’re still in school, then there’s a good chance that your university offers a class based around social media. Especially if the course touches on the marketing and PR aspects of social media, you should definitely take the class.

For those not enrolled in school, there are a variety of online social media courses that teach much of the same material, often in a live setting catered to executives and small business owners. An internship combined with experience in a classroom setting will vastly increase the social media experience on your resume.

Make Your Online Presence a Model of What You Can Do

If you’re applying for a social media job at a competitive business, you better make sure that you have an online presence. If a prospective employer Googles your name and finds nothing of relevance, they will be weary of hiring you to increase their business’ online reputation. After all, if you can’t create your own web presence, how are you supposed to do the same for a multi-million dollar business?

Register, be active, and grow your followers on every social media network you can – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube. It will take some time and work, but if you’re serious about impressing prospective employers in the social media niche, you need to get serious about your online presence on social media.

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