Does the individual social media superhero really exist?

My new favourite pass-time is to review social media jobs being posted online and have a good laugh. There is no shortage of Social Media titles: Manager/Content Creator; Manager and Designer; All Rounder; Specialist; Digital Guru.

If you’re confused by what potential candidates need to offer their expectant employer, you need only browse the job spec: ‘zany, quirky, must-love-Instagram, strategic, digital-savvy, WOW presentation skills, immaculate analytical skills, think mobile, multi-skilled digital ninja’.

Added to this list you should also be a master of Photoshop, Illustrator, Radian6, Hootsuite, In-Design, capable of compiling surveys, have an excellent understanding of SEO/SEM, PPC and ORM… and the list goes on.

So who is this Social Media super human that recruiters, companies and agencies are so desperately seeking?

Social Blasphemy

With such a host of expectations, the question then is also raised as to what salaries are being offered? With few exceptions, most salaries ranged between R5,000 (will still need to live at home with parents) and R15,000 (should have studied Engineering).

Judging by the constantly changing and delightfully-sounding titles found in many recruitment listings, it’s no wonder that companies are still battling to get social media right. The social media holy grail is a person whose skills are spread across writing, designing, uploading/scheduling content, community administration, creation and running of social media advertising, monitoring and optimisations of ads, social media software mastering, interpreting reams of analytics and finally reporting.

Added to this, they should also be able to fulfil an impossible ‘24/7 always on and always available’ promise to client (outside of spending time planning for the next big trend and having content ready for this). All this should be achieved with a salary on par with that of a recent graduate.

There is no (Social Media) god

Social media requires a team of individuals, each with specific skills to undertake and manage a particular aspect of the social strategy. In terms of process, social is no different from the rest of the marketing campaign strategy, creative implementation and reporting structure. If you’re one of those marketers who has been thrust into managing your company’s or various brands’ social platforms, my heart goes out to you.

The unfortunate reality is that there are those individuals who are expected to have all of the skills noted – and are currently working on small or large brands ‘doing social media’ single-handedly. My advice: get out now. When social was in its infancy, companies could not understand the landscape nor afford a team of skilled professionals. At the time, outsourcing made sense. For many companies, this still holds true today. The difference now is that we have a much better understanding of the scope and demands of social media and have to adjust our expectations and budgets accordingly.

There is absolutely no doubt that a single person managing all the social media platforms and processes will compromise rather than optimise social media strategy. The individual social media superhero simply does not exist. What is required is a full team of skilled professionals, and not an individual with an open-ended skill-set.

Let’s Get It Right

Gone are the days when marketing was protected by simplex communications. Today, brands need to be prepared for consumer interaction from all social angles– are you ready? Do you have a plan to manage the conversations that are already happening around you brand? Most importantly, who within your organisation is skilled to handle this? Can one person really take on this role?

In the end, there are people who can multitask and fulfil these functions, but they should be hired to manage a team, which then implements your social strategy. Social media should not be seen as an add-on to the marketing campaign, and simply given to an individual to manage.

Social Media is an integral part of the marketing mix, and should be afforded all of the same respect and investment that the rest of the channels are. This includes the professionals that are entrusted with the brands’ communications requirements in the social sphere.