Social Media Work: Age Aside, Who is a Good Fit?

The web debate on who should do social media maketing, and the myopic view that age impacts social media execution, continues with an INC blog post that gives 11 Reasons a 23-Year-Old Shouldn’t Run Your Social Media without  actually giving any reasons why a 23+ year-old should or could.

While I completely agree with the writer that a company should not put their marketing decisions in the hands of untrained and unprepared staff, I believe good marketing is a business process that is deeply rooted in the readiness and willingness of a company to make a long-term marketing investment. So the problem is not related to age, as much as it’s related to business decisions. If you hire untrained staff, invest in training them, if you don’t want to invest in training, bring in the experts.

As @loganlahive pointed in a tweet,  the age debate can be dumb, painful and offensive. And if it’s not that, it’s just pointless, rehashing info that makes me go “duh!,” such as, “young people are not mature enough,” or “they may not have the same experience.” I think we all agree on those points, just as we can agree that I don’t have the skills to build an artificial brain that can accurately assess tissue samples for signs of breast cancer, the way this 17-year old did.

Bringing up age in any discussion of skills is offensive, discouraging, inaccurate and honestly… not productive, at all. Everybody has potential and is talented in their own right. Work skills require using that talent in an effective and productive way and that is a two-way street – manager and employee must work at it together. The employee must be willing to apply and grow her skills and the manager must be available to nurture and support the employee’s skills development.

So how should companies make social media marketing decisions, at an operational level? Because it’s not the young graduates’ fault that they’re set up for failure, or hired without pay (how many of you know 25-year-old social media Interns working for free? I know about 10+), or given too little or too much responsibility without being ready? That’s a management issue, not an age issue.

New graduates, or seasoned employees, who are smart, honest and capable, yet fail in their social media marketing jobs, don’t fail because of their age, they fail because 1 of 2 situations occur:

1. The job is not a fit for one or both of you. You simply got matched with the wrong person for your business, objectives and culture. And the employee got matched with a place that’s not for them. No one is to blame, it’s just a bad fit.

I understand it’s difficult for hiring managers – there are too many “experts” out there. Unfortunately, only about 1 in 20 aspiring social media “experts” have what it takes to do this work with purpose and on behalf of others. At least that’s what we’ve seen in our recruiting work, and when helping clients find the right people.

The biggest red flag is when someone wants to do this work but deep down, they don’t really like people. Sorry, you have to love people to do this job well. You have to be curious, energetic, upbeat. It’s not easy work. You’ll get beat down by negative comments, you’ll have to have thick skin, you’ll have to solve problems and make 100 decisions a day in a split moment. And more. You have to learn ALL the time. Tweeting and Facebooking is an execution process, it’s the “stage directing” behind it that makes the execution good.

Some days social media marketing is more taxing than traditional marketing and customer service combined. Other times, it’s the best of everything the web has to offer. We have to know how to love and deal with both. It’s exhilarating and enchanting and hard work when done with purpose. We love our work. Make sure you and your staff do, too.

2. They’re set up to fail, through lack of guidance, training, support and other unproductive work-place habits (read Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson if you’d like to explore this idea further). Hiring people is no joke. When we make that offer, when they sign that contract, we become responsible for their career just as much as they become responsible for their role in our success. It’s a two-way street my friends, which is why soon I will write about why I am concerned about the “unpaid internship” and “unpaid contributing/staff blogger” movements that have boomed in the past few years.  Soon.

Until then, let’s talk about what we can do to get the social media resources we need without setting them or ourselves up for failure. Ask yourself:

1. Do you have the time to manage a social media community manager?

2. Do you have the resources to hire a social media community manager and the willingness to continue investing time and resources to help them grow and be the most effective they can be?

3. Do you have the proper set-up and expertise internally to set social media objectives, lay out expectations, plan and manage the social media marketing process?

No? No worries, there are lots of options! 

Option 1: Outsource the whole shebang.  Lots of options there. But this is a situation where a business acknowledges they don’t have the time, expertise or structure to manage and supervise and they decide to bring in expert help at all levels. This option may seem expensive but in most cases it’s cheaper than hiring someone full time and investing the time and resources in growing their career.

Option 2: Hire an expert to help you with the strategy, planning, process and staff training. They can also help you hire the right community manager, and they can stay with you long-term and manage the staff and process. They will be your marketing directors and guide your teams and process. We help businesses in this way, and other colleagues of ours do so too – Susan Silver will help you, “add a strategic marketing function to your company’s arsenal without adding headcount,” Sima Dahl specializes in Social Media for B2B companies and Professional Service firms, and Amy McIlwain in Social Media for financial advisors, insurance agents, and financial service companies.

Option 3: Put it off until you’re ready. There are other marketing options to consider before going the social route. Do you have a good, useful website? How’s your brand? Can people find you through organic search? How’s your advertising and PR? How’s your email marketing?

Do yourself a favor and forget about age. Look for people who are a good fit with your goals and values, who can be just as excited as you about your business. Look to build a process and team structure that will allow your community managers to do marketing with purpose, not just for the heck of it.

So, what is your social media staffing and management process? Let’s talk about tips and approaches to building effective social media departments where time is spent productively not debating age.