Social Media Jobs--Blessings or Burdens?

ALI ROSENBERGER

Athens, Ga--The job market may be looking bleak for many; however those who are social media savvy may have a bright future ahead of them.

Since the explosion of social media outlets, information sharing has never been so easy. Between social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, and multimedia sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr, people are coming together and making connections like never before.

With the number of people looking for information via social networks, it only makes sense that large companies and corporations jump right in. In the past few years, dozens of new positions have been made for the people whose job it is to stay up to date with social media. Titles such as social media consultant, community manager, online reputation manager, blogger outreach manager, and even social media editor have appeared on the “wanted” lists for some of the world’s largest companies.

The New York Times just hired their first full-time social media editor, Jennifer Preston. According to the memo sent out by the New York Times which Preston posted on Twitter, it is she who “concentrates full-time on expanding the use of social media networks and publishing platforms to improve New York Times journalism and deliver it to readers”.

The internet and other media outlets in general have been a threat to printed publications for some time now; however social media has made the public even more dependent on the internet as their main source for information.

Even smaller publications have had to consider expanding to social media outlets to keep up.

“My wife and I thought we could handle producing the magazine with just a few other writers on staff,” said Athens local Gregory Sanders, 39, managing editor at Athens Food & Culture.

The magazine was originally started in Macon, Ga., as a free guide to local restaurants and attractions, but Sanders said that with the generally younger demographic of Athenians, print may not cut it.

“Our first issue just hit stands last week, and I’m already thinking I might need to hire someone to do a website or blog to go along with it.”

With the pressure of a recession and the ever fickle supply of jobs available, the explosion of new positions in the social media scene is a breath of fresh air for many soon-to-be college grads.

“I have been so nervous about graduating next year with a degree in advertising. I mean, we’re in a recession, nobody is buying anything,” said Rhanatah Griffith, 22, a current advertising major at the University of Georgia from Atlanta.

“But now—thanks to the whole new dimension that social media has created to advertise through—there are more job opportunities for people like me, and there is a whole new frontier to master from now until then,” said Griffith.

In one of the harder to master crazes, virtual worlds, users create an avatar to live vicariously through in a digital world.

“Virtual worlds, like MetaPlace and the the Sims Online, are computer based simulated environments where one experiences things much like those in the real world. They choose personal preferences for entertainment, food, and communication, and are even subject to advertising,” said Christina Stone, 41, a project manager for AT&T Communications in Atlanta, who specializes in new product advertising.

“Every person on my team must be familiar with the basic social networking sites so we can stay up to date with technology. It takes memory to house all of these outlets, and companies have to be creating products that are useful to the general public.”