As a PR consultant with almost 8 years of successful freelancing behind me I am excited to be taking my career to another level! In 1997 I remember being totally carried away with the “worldwideweb” – boring people to death with my enthusiasm for how it was going to change the way everyone accessed information. And now, here I am again, with that same feeling of excitement at the prospect of becoming a “social media manager”.
Recently I had found myself wondering whether or not in 10 years time I would still be selling-in press releases and creating interesting content to help organisations raise their profile with people they wanted to connect with… and I’m pleased to say that I think I will. After all, CONTENT IS KING!!! BUT the communication tools or media at my disposal will be hugely different – and much more fun!
Long gone are the days spent stuffing envelopes with press releases on headed paper, with captioned “trannies” or colour prints carefully labelled! And I marvel that I managed to get anything done before the web and email came along – although I do occasionally curse my service provider for extended outages which render me completely useless.
Now, I am studying Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube (with a little help from a man called Nigel Botterill) and preparing – with some trepidation – to launch myself as a social media manager.
I know I have the right experience to make this work – and I certainly have the commitment and enthusiasm to plug what threatens to become a gaping skills hole in my CV. But more importantly, this opportunity to re-brand and upskill (I hate that word – does anyone have anything better to use?) has given me a new lease of life (and a few sleepless nights – but in a positive way, as I just can’t wait to get started!).
And according to some reports, I am “upping my game” at just the right time (PR Week, 8 Oct http://www.prweek.com/news/1033367/Technology-Social-media-spend-rise/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH ).
As a newbie, I am loving the amount of information there is online about social media and how to manage it effectively.
Does anyone have any words of advice, do’s and don’ts to share??
