Social media Strategist position is becoming a real job. And companies are starting to deal with it pretty well. You can see as a reference the blog Social Media Headhunter written by Jim Durbin who's giving tips to companies on how to select and hire a Social Media Strategist (look at one of his best posting from now). But to be clear, what does it mean to be a social media strategist? Can it be the same as Web Strategist (see the definition of Jeremiah Owyang, guru on that matter)? Or would Social Media specialty be more connected with the Community manager activity area (using the Community management description explanation given by Chris Brogan)?
From my point of view, being a Social Media strategist can be related to connecting and engaging conversation with opinion leaders and potential business partners/ clients, using as well offline and online events/ tools, to enhance awareness of the brand you're working for, create the best first impression of your product/ service, and manage and spread the vision of your brand so that you can keep your business up-to-date and innovative.
That said, it means Social Media strategist position gather 3 main abilities (not speaking of expertise, but ability to use the 3 of them simultaneously):
- Being an account planner to know where your brand is going and give insights, market evolution, and communications planning ideas
- Being connected (or at least able to quickly connect with interested and influential people from your business area) through tools your market is using, for instance Twitter/ Blog/ FriendFeed/ Seesmic/ Disqus/ FaceBook
- Being addicted to knowledge and always testing things as an entrepreneur does to know fast if that can work out better than what you're doing right now
And as Des Walsh is telling in his post on Social Media Strategy, I too think companies are ready to pay for Social Media strategies. And more than that, we can see brands are ready to pay for a social media strategist, as we can see by Jim Durbin's role and Social Media Jobs board.
Thanks to Des Walsh for having started the conversation.
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By Romain Péchard
Fast.Fwd.Innov@tion