Via Amber Naslund (@ambercadabra) on Twitter yesterday – This (posted on mashable) is not the way to go about hiring an experienced Social Media Practitioner to get a practice up and running:
NEEDED IMMEDIATELY: INTELLIGENT SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANT:
Intelligent Social Media Consultant to support a consumer PR agency based in NYC. You will not be working in-house – so you must be willing to be on call for a flat, monthly retainer fee.The most necessary requirement of this position – is an ability to create in-depth Social Media proposals with an eye towards driving a PR campaign, then helping those proposals to be executed – either through your own technical expertise, or by appropriately functioning as a Project Manager. Examples of your writing and previous proposals are required.
SKILL-REQUIREMENTS:
• Knowing your trade, if you’re not 100% up-to-date on the latest and greatest tools for social media (including Facebook corporate pages, Twitter, and Social Media News Releases, just to name a few examples), please do not apply.
• You need to understand the world of PR, and how it can translate to Social Media. We want you to know great examples of successful PR/social media campaigns, what a company’s competitors are doing, and how we can replicate that to create similar success stories.
• Must have: first-rate writing skills
• Must have: ability to consistently generate creative ideas for corporate clients and explain those ideas in-depth, in writing, and in a proposal
• Must be willing and able: to create multiple proposals in a week if necessary
• You must be willing to attend on-site corporate client meetings when necessary
• You must be detail oriented and quantitative (you will be called on to perform Social Media Audits, for example
• You must understand Social Media metrics – (we are always asked to show an ROI to clients, you need to not only have creative ideas but also have the skill to know how to measure the campaigns you help us to create)Our PR campaigns draw on the full arsenal of Social Media tools, and for the purpose of the proposals you create for us and for the campaigns you oversee, you will need strong resources and up-to-the-minute industry knowledge to execute: Twitter feeds (and Corporate Twitter Feeds), Facebook (Corporate), Myspace (Corporate), Blogs/Vlogs, Optimized Press Releases, Social Media News Releases, Mobile Marketing Campaigns (not as frequent), Online Marketing/ Advertising, Online Newsrooms, Viral Videos, Photosharing, Podcasting & Webcasts, SEO, Microsites, Widgets & Wiki Updates
COMPENSATION:
Flat Fee of $1,000 per month, plus additional commissions on campaigns you help us to land, plus other work-load related bonuses
First of all, I would ask this PR agency what happens once these winning proposals have been written and approved by the client: Who executes on these programs and campaigns if not the Social Media honcho? If this is going to work, someone has to build and manage these programs, right? If not the Social Media “consultant” who wrote out the plan, whom? (Fail #1).
Fail #2: $1,000 per month? Are you kidding me? For all of that? (writing proposals, meeting with clients, Social Media audits, ROI measurement.) Yeah. Good luck with that. (It’s only NYC: I’m sure anyone can get by just fine on $12K per year – pre-tax.) Not that those skills are worth ten times that.
Question to the company responsible for this req: Where do I apply for the $800 per month CMO job please?
Man, it’s good to see smart companies still willing to pay big bucks for big talent. Way to go.
Ha! Good luck with the CMO position, Olivier
The problem is that organizations still don’t understand or respect the shift Social Media is making to the marketing world. If they did, they wouldn’t embarrass themselves making low ball offers like this one above. It proves that these businesses are not convinced or have enough evidence before them to invest in doing it right.
It still has the water cooler thought processing, they want to play it safe by low-balling just in case it is yet another black hole. The business of Social Media has yet be recognized as a viable means to do business.
My two cents.
Where did they come up with the $1,000 per month number…Oh maybe it’s the same way congress came up with the $750 Billion dollar bailout number….you got a number?…Uh no…you got a number?….
We talked a bit about this last night but what I don’t get (among other things) is that they’re looking for a top-notch intelligent social media person JUST to do proposal writing and client meetings? They’re short-cutting the position, not only by pay but by the type of smarts they’re looking for. They’re looking for that knockout employee who could and would actually be able to fulfill a true full-time role as a social media manager, really.
But the problem with this company is that they either can’t let go of control on the actual implementation of strategies after proposals are accepted, or they just think they can shortcut someone’s pay because we’re in ‘tough times’ and they would undoubtedly be able to get a stellar employee who will work for bread crumbs.
Yeah, I’m not sure what they’re thinking.
Maybe they also need someone to learn how to monitor social media channels (like blogs) so they can find this post and answer some of these questions.
Love this post! This job posting is hysterical. Good luck to them I’m thinking that they end up with a college kid who has a facebook account working from his/her dorm room!
Just think about how much Ramen this could buy me!
I have SHARPENING students making $1000 per day! That’s right, PER DAY! Why would any competent Social Media Consultant even consider something like this? What is this agency thinking. Oops…wait, they’re not.
Whew. NOW I know what the “latest and greatest social media tools” are: “Facebook corporate pages, Twitter, and Social Media Press Releases.”
This IS just too funny.
After a long career as a Social Media Expert, Phil Jackson was hired to coach the Chicago Bulls. Wanting to be a basketball coaching legend, he posted the following on Craigslist:
“Wanted: radically talented basketball players who are not only physically fit, but possess an uncanny ability to anticipate the moves of opponents and the basketball. Must be willing to endure intense scrutiny by the press, be vilified when you mess up, stalked when you succeed, second-guessed by announcers who’ve never played. Must be able to consistently score at least 30 points each game yourself while assisting your teammates with another 30 points per game. Salary: $800 to $1,000 per month.”
Any Michael Jordan’s with social intelligence ready to jump on the SM Guru job bandwagon?
PS. Would any of these corporate wannabe social media leveraging folks even TALK to a Dennis Rodman, ever? Would they entrust their “brand” to him as the front line of consumer contact?
Interesting to see so many organizations looking for planning capabilities, but not execution. Hello, who is going to do this for them? Do they plan on taking responsibility after the plan is set? To do that they’d have to assign people to that anomalous “they” term, wouldn’t “they”? Wouldn’t that execution best be done by the person (or persons) who drafted the strategy?
And, really $1,000?! REALLY?!
Keep living in La La Land, Aforementioned Firm. You’ll go far with that kind of methodology. Madness.
Kind of sad, but this made my day! I’m literally speechless.
In italy you can find plenty of 1K/month CMO Jobs!