June 11, 2025 • 22 mins
This week, Emily Sherwin, social media lead at Jisc, chats about how she went from art school and Waitrose cheese counters to leading social strategy. We discuss agency vs in-house life, going viral in the early days, and why you don’t need to be an influencer to work in social.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So my name is Emily Sherwinand I am social media lead at JISC.
(00:06):
Amazing.
So let's go right back to the beginning.
What is your educational journeylook like?
I wanted to study photographyand do art and things,
and they did art school,but they didn't do photography.
So I went to college.
I did, oh, I did photography, Englishliterature and business studies.
And then I decided Spirit or Foundationafter my A-levels,
(00:29):
which I quickly realisedthat's what I needed to do
if I wanted to study photography,a good art school.
University degree for my degree.
So yes, I did art foundation,film investor life.
Had a great time. Yeah.
Then I went to CamberwellCollege of Art down in London.
So again,that was a good three years of just doing
(00:51):
whatever I wanted to do.
So I graduated in 2013.
A very long time agonow. Quite scary for them.
Very old.
And yeah.
And then I sort of was like,okay, now what?
So I got a part time job
and I interned at a placecalled Camberwell Press, which is a
(01:14):
I don't know if it's still goingor not, actually, but it's,
it was a publishing house design studio,
which was like,sort of linked to the university.
And it was run by X students
and like the course, some of the graphicdesign course directors.
So I was that online editor.
(01:34):
So I did stuff for that website and thensort of did their social media as well.
And that was like a yearlong part timeinternship.
So when my internship can end,that was a bit more like, oh,
now I still don't know what I want to do,but I should probably get a proper job.
And those working part time on the cheesecounter at Waitrose.
(01:56):
So I have started applying for a few jobs.
I didn't really want to be a full timephotographer, mainly because I didn't want
to put the work in to become freelanceand I didn't want to take photos babies.
So it's like, oh, I need somethingsomewhere down the middle.
I applied for a job and got an interview.
Evan Cycles, for like a sort of
(02:17):
content creator, like a, editor.
Blog writer.
I didn't get a job, but I was like,oh, yeah, maybe I want to work in cycling.
Cycling newsalways been a big passion of mine.
I've always cycled, like been goingto watch Tory France since I was little.
My parents are really into it.
So then I was like, okay,
(02:38):
if I don't want to be a photographer,try and work in sport.
So then I found a small PR agency
that specialised in cycling and enjoyedsport.
Started interning there for a few months,basically
being a general public,like it was PR intern.
But then I also dida bit of social media there,
(02:59):
and they sort of dabbled in itfor a few of their clients,
and then they offered me a full timeposition as a PR and social assistant.
So I managed to, you know, leave the hazy,
hazy days of cheese and fish countersat Waitrose behind me.
And yeah, startedworking full time at agency, and
that was a real sort of learn on the job.
(03:23):
I had no experience really of, well,definitely not a PR,
no experience of social apart from like,I mean Instagram and was
this was like in 2015.
So Instagramhad been around for a few years, but
no, nowhere near as big as it is now.
So when you could still go viralvery easily.
(03:43):
In the.
Days, you know,and that magic viral button was a thing.
Yeah.
And it was before GDPR and stuff.
So it was really easy.
So yeah.
So yeah, I started working there
and then so quicklyrealised that PR wasn't for me.
Yeah.
So I said to my director, I was like,I just want to do social.
And it's like, right, okay.
(04:04):
And so the social side of the businesswas growing.
It was a small agency.
I think there was only about 5 or 6 of uswhen I first joined.
So it was a good timeto kind of like dictate like have a say
in how we wanted things to runand what we could do for clients.
So yeah, so I learned on the job,learned from my director
who had looked after the social accountsbefore that.
(04:26):
And yeah,I did everything from community management
strategy, content creation, competitions,you name it.
If it were social,I did that grow accounts from scratch
and that looked after bakequite big clients in the cycling world.
So I've
sort of came full
circle and Evans Cyclesbecame a client of ours.
(04:47):
And so I was working with the peoplewho had interviewed me for years previous.
At times it was stress.
Well, you know, as a small agency,I was in my early 20s,
so I put all of myself into it,
and probably too much of my sort
end point,it felt like maybe I was close to better.
(05:07):
I don't know, I feel like maybe that wordis propounded around quite a lot, but,
yeah, it was
it was rewardingand challenging at the same time.
Yeah.
So so I was there for about five,six years and then was made redundant,
which is the nature of being agency side.
(05:30):
If one client goes,you know, margins are so
small that if
two big clients go,you know, you lose half the stuff.
So but then I found another agencyand this time it was a creative agency.
So advertising and yes, then
luckily I'd gotten that jobat the end of 2019.
(05:51):
So before everything went wrong in 2020,
worked for the agency
for about,yeah, four years until early 2023.
And again, that was a lot of likelearning on the job.
It was a new environment.
I hadn't worked in advertising before,massive budgets
compared to having a a grantto put behind a Facebook paragraphs.
(06:15):
I was sort of in, in the studioand with the creatives as well.
So, that spoke to my creative sideand then decided that.
So this was still London,say London after university.
And then I decided that London lifewasn't for me anymore,
(06:35):
and I wanted to move backto Manchester, back home, started
looking for a job that was a bitmore flexible, based in Manchester.
And yeah, I came across Jyske.
I was actually printed up by my dad who,
has been had well, he's retirednow, so, they've shown for he
he worked for part of Jyskeand I'd seen this the job advertised.
(06:59):
So I sent it to me and then.
Yeah, then I got the job. Social media.
It was sort of a new role within the team.
So. Yeah. So yes.And I've been at Jyske for
two years.
Yeah.
So Jyske is more of an in-house position.
So what would you say are the maindifferences between the agency life
(07:20):
that you've spoken a bit about and,and an in-house life, as it were.
Is completely different.
It's nicenot having to deal with demanding clients.
Should we say you don't think you deserve.
And we kept it.
So yeah.
So it it's it's a different pace of life.
They. Yeah.
Agency side can be really fastpaced in some ways
(07:45):
but very slow in other ways.
For example, there was a an audio
trend a few years agoand all the weeks away wrap.
My money down. Yeah, they go to the.
And I want it to doI want it to jump on that trend.
Does many of those businessesbrands were doing so I like right.
(08:06):
Acaster made some sense in aboutI don't know an hour and
and it took about three weeks
for it to be signed off and posted.
Maybe not three weeks,but it was a long time.
It was, it was,it was I it was. It was done.
It was over. Yeah.
Yeah.
So by the time it went out,I just was a little bit.
(08:27):
So it was a lot of bureaucracy and
especially the automotive firmI worked for.
We had a UK client,
but then sometimesthings would have to go through legal.
They would have to go to Europe.
As the UK, reported into Europe.
And sometimes again,
(08:49):
that had to go into Korea,which is where they were based.
So a long,very long chain of approvals sometimes.
And so time differences and things.
So yeah.
So if you want tojust put something out quickly,
it would have to be checksfor lots of different people.
You couldn'tjust put something out immediately.
(09:11):
So the agency world and clientsmoved very quickly.
But then on the flip side,there's a lot of eyes
and things are high stakes,so you can't just. Yeah,
turnaround times are can be slower. Yes.
And then in have been in-house.
I do actually have owners of
(09:35):
social brand.
I tend to voice a presence strategywhich, you know,
when I'd been applying for jobsand interviewing at different agencies
and things, that was always like, okay,you really get that was always a sell.
Like, yeah, you really getoh, ownership is a brand,
but ultimatelyyou're working for the client.
(09:55):
So you, you, you can have a say,you can say it,
but you don't get the final final say so.
Yeah.
So in-house it's really it's really nice
to actually be like,this is what I want to do.
How would it to look?
So I want to say,and this is how it position jyske and
(10:17):
yeah.
And most of the time that comesto fruition Jyske is quite a big company.
So there is still like,
bureaucracy as well, but not,not as much in like things.
It's a different, again,a different pace of life.
So sometimes things can be a bit slowerwhen you're not answering to clients.
It's not usually that senseof like life and death urgency.
(10:40):
I'm very muchenjoying that life at the moment.
But then again, like if I want to
jump on a trend, if we've got somelike an orgy I want to use
or there's something current in this,like I like, right, I can do that.
That's relevant for us. I'll do it.
Maybe I'll get it checkedby one of the persons.
And, you know, just to like,
(11:01):
especially if we're talkingabout like, product on the security
or something that I don't have it,you know, 100% I'm signing off,
but most of the time I can get sort ofturned around very quickly, which is nice.
Yeah.
And I so would you say thatyou have to be good, social media
in your personal life in order to be ableto make a career out of it?
(11:22):
No. Okay.
This is somethingI find really frustrating
sometimes because I've worked with clients
before who who been a client
at the agency, and they have then
decided to take social in-house,which is fine.
(11:45):
Gosh, I think social the day to daysocial learning should be done
in-house where possible,but they've bypassed
and sort of gotrid of like a wealth of social expertise
and resourcing to cut costs,which is fine.
But then they've recruited people
(12:05):
who've been big, big on social
like they've included, handles in their CV
and in this particular instance, the,the new social media manager
who got the job had,
I don't know, about 15,000 Instagramfollowers, which was great.
(12:26):
Good for you.
But then you could see the differencein the output
after we stopped working with them.
And I don't think you need to
fear social mediainfluencer to be a social media manager.
If anything,I think the two don't really work
that well together, especiallyif you're trying to grow your own brand.
(12:49):
Your personal brand is at odds with whatyou're trying to do for a company.
You don't need to have a massive personal
following to know how algorithms work,to know how to write compelling
copy or create a visual story.
So what changeshave you seen in the social landscape?
(13:12):
A lot.
So when I saidbefore about being able to go viral
when I first started in social, it was,
yeah, real kind of a lawless land.
But like,there was no sort of GDPR restrictions.
You couldthere was no way like covenants and data
(13:32):
and it was easier to like,reach new people
and go for peoplewithout needing to pay for it now, too.
Like if you wanted to createa new Instagram account or a new TikTok,
or launch a brand and social, it's
quite hard to just throwa following really quick like.
(13:56):
Whereas when I started
you could just follow peopleto both outrage cruelty management
and you could get build the communityrelatively quickly and checkpoint.
Now you need which in some ways is better.
Now you need like a fulllike a real social first strategy.
(14:16):
But so it's a lot harderand it's a lot more time consuming.
And you need to be willing to invest
resources both time and monetary into.
Yeah,building a brand and present sensation.
And looking slightly to the future.
Well, the present really
(14:40):
I pop up.
Is that going to steal those jobsand ruin everything?
Or that don't make your livesa billion times better?
I don't think it's
going to steal everyone's jobs,
because.
So we use AI a little bit, especially
(15:01):
when I'm doing paid social campaigns.
If we need to write a lot of coffee,a monger, if we need lots of different
ad variations.
Coffee variations,I know is really useful for telling me
what I don't want to write it.
Well, it can give me a lot of differentvariations of ad copy, which is great.
(15:22):
And then more often than not,I'll be like, no, no, that sounds better.
Let me change it.
But I've got the bare bones there, so it's
good to make, thingsmore efficient and quicker.
And that means we can buildcampaigns easier.
But there's still the need, for.
Yeah, creative thinking
(15:44):
and people interaction.
Nice.
So what skills would you say you needto be a good social media manager?
A lot of job descriptions will tell youthat you need to be a,
project manager, a planner,a paid social expert,
a data scientist,a photographer, a videographer, an editor.
(16:08):
I think that is a load of crap.
It makes my blood boilwhen you see some like that and it's.
And there's no salary on itat all, or 27 grand
or something, and you're asking peopleto do about 17 different jobs.
So that is to a certain degree,that is the nature of it.
(16:30):
And that's that's how I learn the ropesby doing a bit of everything.
But that was very junior positionand it was in a small agency.
So it was all hands. The deck.
But I think there's mostsocial media managers or account managers
depend if you're working in an agencyor in-house,
will be you'll either be
(16:50):
they can't run into all the creativeso organised
who's definitely one of the top things,even if you're not really organised.
I'm not really organised,but I can pretend I am.
I can read itmatters, I can, I will be organised.
But you know, you don't needto plan everything in minute detail.
(17:10):
You still need to be reactiveand flexible and social.
But a creative mindsetI think is very important.
An analytical mind as well.
I don't really likethe reporting side of things.
I'll look at things, I'll look at dataand I'll look at content
to see if it's performing welland if things have landed well,
(17:32):
or if we're doingif we're not doing great, we need to,
you know,put some put some more effort into it.
But that's notwhat gets me out of bed in the morning.
You don't need to be a jack of all trades.
This is great if you are,but you can specialise in, like,
the creative side of thingsto, like, being a good writer.
(17:53):
Attention to detail actually is the onething you do need as a social media.
There's a
because I've had instances whereI've put posts out on the wrong accounts.
I've had to delete set that way.
But, you know, you've you realise thatmistake quite quickly.
You want to do that once. Yeah.
So yeah.
So attention to detail number one.
(18:14):
But you can be really good at like accountmanagement, client management,
organising, reporting.
And that's one avenue you can go down.
You can pay to sort of plannerplumbing side of this
social media.
Or you can be more creative.
You can do the way to do it.
(18:35):
And any advice for anyonelooking to enter this industry?
I would just say go for itif you want to do it.
And if you're thinkingabout getting into it, just do it.
It's not for everyone.
It's not as glamorous as you thinkit is, especially at the beginning.
It can be long hours, but yeah, or try it.
(18:58):
See what you're good at,because it might be that
they start off and stuff in social media.
And if you're in an agency like, oh,actually I like the client services side,
but so you go down that route or no,
I want to make TikToks,I want to edit videos and everything.
But the creative side of it, I well,
(19:20):
I think they're in social medianow for longer than I care to admit.
And no day is ever the same.
Things are always changing.
I don't thinkthat Facebook is your friend.
Oh. Facebook is not your friend.
Because as soon as you think you've,if you've cracked it, they change it.
They put things in the differentin the wrong place.
(19:42):
So yes,my things are always changing. Busy.
It's frustratingbut rewarding in equal measures.
And I like the community side of thingsand like talking to people online and,
and and building up relationships
and connecting with customers online.
So I like that side of things.
So it can be rewardingin a, in a different sense of,
(20:04):
you know, you generallike customer relationships.
Yeah.
I'm saying, is there anything elsethat you wanted to add at all?
I don't think you need a marketing degreeto work in marketing.
I think that's probably maybe,maybe controversial,
but I don't have a marketing degree.
I don't have any formmarketing qualifications.
(20:26):
If you want to get into social media,especially in like content
and things,you can have that creative mindset
and you can come at itfrom a creative background
or like media backgroundrather than a traditional marketing
background, andespecially if you're willing to start in
(20:47):
like a junior positionand then on the job.
I think you yeah, you can
it's a good a good place to start.
And you don't need to
when I have been recruiting for like,
semi junior roles in the past,
I have not looked
(21:09):
for people to have marketing,
traditional marketing experience teams,
if they've got a bit of dependingon what their role is, we have have
got a bit of, hands on experienceif they've like interned or they,
we've done projects at university.
(21:30):
And then they've got a creativebackground.
I'd much rather
I tend to gravitate to that.
More towards someone who's got
A PHD
in
emails.
Really.
Well thank you so much for your timetoday.
That's alright. Thank you for having me.
So my name is Emily Sherwinand I am social media lead at JISC.
(00:06):
Amazing.
So let's go right back to the beginning.
What is your educational journeylook like?
I wanted to study photographyand do art and things,
and they did art school,but they didn't do photography.
So I went to college.
I did, oh, I did photography, Englishliterature and business studies.
And then I decided Spirit or Foundationafter my A-levels,
(00:29):
which I quickly realisedthat's what I needed to do
if I wanted to study photography,a good art school.
University degree for my degree.
So yes, I did art foundation,film investor life.
Had a great time. Yeah.
Then I went to CamberwellCollege of Art down in London.
So again,that was a good three years of just doing
(00:51):
whatever I wanted to do.
So I graduated in 2013.
A very long time agonow. Quite scary for them.
Very old.
And yeah.
And then I sort of was like,okay, now what?
So I got a part time job
and I interned at a placecalled Camberwell Press, which is a
(01:14):
I don't know if it's still goingor not, actually, but it's,
it was a publishing house design studio,
which was like,sort of linked to the university.
And it was run by X students
and like the course, some of the graphicdesign course directors.
So I was that online editor.
(01:34):
So I did stuff for that website and thensort of did their social media as well.
And that was like a yearlong part timeinternship.
So when my internship can end,that was a bit more like, oh,
now I still don't know what I want to do,but I should probably get a proper job.
And those working part time on the cheesecounter at Waitrose.
(01:56):
So I have started applying for a few jobs.
I didn't really want to be a full timephotographer, mainly because I didn't want
to put the work in to become freelanceand I didn't want to take photos babies.
So it's like, oh, I need somethingsomewhere down the middle.
I applied for a job and got an interview.
Evan Cycles, for like a sort of
(02:17):
content creator, like a, editor.
Blog writer.
I didn't get a job, but I was like,oh, yeah, maybe I want to work in cycling.
Cycling newsalways been a big passion of mine.
I've always cycled, like been goingto watch Tory France since I was little.
My parents are really into it.
So then I was like, okay,
(02:38):
if I don't want to be a photographer,try and work in sport.
So then I found a small PR agency
that specialised in cycling and enjoyedsport.
Started interning there for a few months,basically
being a general public,like it was PR intern.
But then I also dida bit of social media there,
(02:59):
and they sort of dabbled in itfor a few of their clients,
and then they offered me a full timeposition as a PR and social assistant.
So I managed to, you know, leave the hazy,
hazy days of cheese and fish countersat Waitrose behind me.
And yeah, startedworking full time at agency, and
that was a real sort of learn on the job.
(03:23):
I had no experience really of, well,definitely not a PR,
no experience of social apart from like,I mean Instagram and was
this was like in 2015.
So Instagramhad been around for a few years, but
no, nowhere near as big as it is now.
So when you could still go viralvery easily.
(03:43):
In the.
Days, you know,and that magic viral button was a thing.
Yeah.
And it was before GDPR and stuff.
So it was really easy.
So yeah.
So yeah, I started working there
and then so quicklyrealised that PR wasn't for me.
Yeah.
So I said to my director, I was like,I just want to do social.
And it's like, right, okay.
(04:04):
And so the social side of the businesswas growing.
It was a small agency.
I think there was only about 5 or 6 of uswhen I first joined.
So it was a good timeto kind of like dictate like have a say
in how we wanted things to runand what we could do for clients.
So yeah, so I learned on the job,learned from my director
who had looked after the social accountsbefore that.
(04:26):
And yeah,I did everything from community management
strategy, content creation, competitions,you name it.
If it were social,I did that grow accounts from scratch
and that looked after bakequite big clients in the cycling world.
So I've
sort of came full
circle and Evans Cyclesbecame a client of ours.
(04:47):
And so I was working with the peoplewho had interviewed me for years previous.
At times it was stress.
Well, you know, as a small agency,I was in my early 20s,
so I put all of myself into it,
and probably too much of my sort
end point,it felt like maybe I was close to better.
(05:07):
I don't know, I feel like maybe that wordis propounded around quite a lot, but,
yeah, it was
it was rewardingand challenging at the same time.
Yeah.
So so I was there for about five,six years and then was made redundant,
which is the nature of being agency side.
(05:30):
If one client goes,you know, margins are so
small that if
two big clients go,you know, you lose half the stuff.
So but then I found another agencyand this time it was a creative agency.
So advertising and yes, then
luckily I'd gotten that jobat the end of 2019.
(05:51):
So before everything went wrong in 2020,
worked for the agency
for about,yeah, four years until early 2023.
And again, that was a lot of likelearning on the job.
It was a new environment.
I hadn't worked in advertising before,massive budgets
compared to having a a grantto put behind a Facebook paragraphs.
(06:15):
I was sort of in, in the studioand with the creatives as well.
So, that spoke to my creative sideand then decided that.
So this was still London,say London after university.
And then I decided that London lifewasn't for me anymore,
(06:35):
and I wanted to move backto Manchester, back home, started
looking for a job that was a bitmore flexible, based in Manchester.
And yeah, I came across Jyske.
I was actually printed up by my dad who,
has been had well, he's retirednow, so, they've shown for he
he worked for part of Jyskeand I'd seen this the job advertised.
(06:59):
So I sent it to me and then.
Yeah, then I got the job. Social media.
It was sort of a new role within the team.
So. Yeah. So yes.And I've been at Jyske for
two years.
Yeah.
So Jyske is more of an in-house position.
So what would you say are the maindifferences between the agency life
(07:20):
that you've spoken a bit about and,and an in-house life, as it were.
Is completely different.
It's nicenot having to deal with demanding clients.
Should we say you don't think you deserve.
And we kept it.
So yeah.
So it it's it's a different pace of life.
They. Yeah.
Agency side can be really fastpaced in some ways
(07:45):
but very slow in other ways.
For example, there was a an audio
trend a few years agoand all the weeks away wrap.
My money down. Yeah, they go to the.
And I want it to doI want it to jump on that trend.
Does many of those businessesbrands were doing so I like right.
(08:06):
Acaster made some sense in aboutI don't know an hour and
and it took about three weeks
for it to be signed off and posted.
Maybe not three weeks,but it was a long time.
It was, it was,it was I it was. It was done.
It was over. Yeah.
Yeah.
So by the time it went out,I just was a little bit.
(08:27):
So it was a lot of bureaucracy and
especially the automotive firmI worked for.
We had a UK client,
but then sometimesthings would have to go through legal.
They would have to go to Europe.
As the UK, reported into Europe.
And sometimes again,
(08:49):
that had to go into Korea,which is where they were based.
So a long,very long chain of approvals sometimes.
And so time differences and things.
So yeah.
So if you want tojust put something out quickly,
it would have to be checksfor lots of different people.
You couldn'tjust put something out immediately.
(09:11):
So the agency world and clientsmoved very quickly.
But then on the flip side,there's a lot of eyes
and things are high stakes,so you can't just. Yeah,
turnaround times are can be slower. Yes.
And then in have been in-house.
I do actually have owners of
(09:35):
social brand.
I tend to voice a presence strategywhich, you know,
when I'd been applying for jobsand interviewing at different agencies
and things, that was always like, okay,you really get that was always a sell.
Like, yeah, you really getoh, ownership is a brand,
but ultimatelyyou're working for the client.
(09:55):
So you, you, you can have a say,you can say it,
but you don't get the final final say so.
Yeah.
So in-house it's really it's really nice
to actually be like,this is what I want to do.
How would it to look?
So I want to say,and this is how it position jyske and
(10:17):
yeah.
And most of the time that comesto fruition Jyske is quite a big company.
So there is still like,
bureaucracy as well, but not,not as much in like things.
It's a different, again,a different pace of life.
So sometimes things can be a bit slowerwhen you're not answering to clients.
It's not usually that senseof like life and death urgency.
(10:40):
I'm very muchenjoying that life at the moment.
But then again, like if I want to
jump on a trend, if we've got somelike an orgy I want to use
or there's something current in this,like I like, right, I can do that.
That's relevant for us. I'll do it.
Maybe I'll get it checkedby one of the persons.
And, you know, just to like,
(11:01):
especially if we're talkingabout like, product on the security
or something that I don't have it,you know, 100% I'm signing off,
but most of the time I can get sort ofturned around very quickly, which is nice.
Yeah.
And I so would you say thatyou have to be good, social media
in your personal life in order to be ableto make a career out of it?
(11:22):
No. Okay.
This is somethingI find really frustrating
sometimes because I've worked with clients
before who who been a client
at the agency, and they have then
decided to take social in-house,which is fine.
(11:45):
Gosh, I think social the day to daysocial learning should be done
in-house where possible,but they've bypassed
and sort of gotrid of like a wealth of social expertise
and resourcing to cut costs,which is fine.
But then they've recruited people
(12:05):
who've been big, big on social
like they've included, handles in their CV
and in this particular instance, the,the new social media manager
who got the job had,
I don't know, about 15,000 Instagramfollowers, which was great.
(12:26):
Good for you.
But then you could see the differencein the output
after we stopped working with them.
And I don't think you need to
fear social mediainfluencer to be a social media manager.
If anything,I think the two don't really work
that well together, especiallyif you're trying to grow your own brand.
(12:49):
Your personal brand is at odds with whatyou're trying to do for a company.
You don't need to have a massive personal
following to know how algorithms work,to know how to write compelling
copy or create a visual story.
So what changeshave you seen in the social landscape?
(13:12):
A lot.
So when I saidbefore about being able to go viral
when I first started in social, it was,
yeah, real kind of a lawless land.
But like,there was no sort of GDPR restrictions.
You couldthere was no way like covenants and data
(13:32):
and it was easier to like,reach new people
and go for peoplewithout needing to pay for it now, too.
Like if you wanted to createa new Instagram account or a new TikTok,
or launch a brand and social, it's
quite hard to just throwa following really quick like.
(13:56):
Whereas when I started
you could just follow peopleto both outrage cruelty management
and you could get build the communityrelatively quickly and checkpoint.
Now you need which in some ways is better.
Now you need like a fulllike a real social first strategy.
(14:16):
But so it's a lot harderand it's a lot more time consuming.
And you need to be willing to invest
resources both time and monetary into.
Yeah,building a brand and present sensation.
And looking slightly to the future.
Well, the present really
(14:40):
I pop up.
Is that going to steal those jobsand ruin everything?
Or that don't make your livesa billion times better?
I don't think it's
going to steal everyone's jobs,
because.
So we use AI a little bit, especially
(15:01):
when I'm doing paid social campaigns.
If we need to write a lot of coffee,a monger, if we need lots of different
ad variations.
Coffee variations,I know is really useful for telling me
what I don't want to write it.
Well, it can give me a lot of differentvariations of ad copy, which is great.
(15:22):
And then more often than not,I'll be like, no, no, that sounds better.
Let me change it.
But I've got the bare bones there, so it's
good to make, thingsmore efficient and quicker.
And that means we can buildcampaigns easier.
But there's still the need, for.
Yeah, creative thinking
(15:44):
and people interaction.
Nice.
So what skills would you say you needto be a good social media manager?
A lot of job descriptions will tell youthat you need to be a,
project manager, a planner,a paid social expert,
a data scientist,a photographer, a videographer, an editor.
(16:08):
I think that is a load of crap.
It makes my blood boilwhen you see some like that and it's.
And there's no salary on itat all, or 27 grand
or something, and you're asking peopleto do about 17 different jobs.
So that is to a certain degree,that is the nature of it.
(16:30):
And that's that's how I learn the ropesby doing a bit of everything.
But that was very junior positionand it was in a small agency.
So it was all hands. The deck.
But I think there's mostsocial media managers or account managers
depend if you're working in an agencyor in-house,
will be you'll either be
(16:50):
they can't run into all the creativeso organised
who's definitely one of the top things,even if you're not really organised.
I'm not really organised,but I can pretend I am.
I can read itmatters, I can, I will be organised.
But you know, you don't needto plan everything in minute detail.
(17:10):
You still need to be reactiveand flexible and social.
But a creative mindsetI think is very important.
An analytical mind as well.
I don't really likethe reporting side of things.
I'll look at things, I'll look at dataand I'll look at content
to see if it's performing welland if things have landed well,
(17:32):
or if we're doingif we're not doing great, we need to,
you know,put some put some more effort into it.
But that's notwhat gets me out of bed in the morning.
You don't need to be a jack of all trades.
This is great if you are,but you can specialise in, like,
the creative side of thingsto, like, being a good writer.
(17:53):
Attention to detail actually is the onething you do need as a social media.
There's a
because I've had instances whereI've put posts out on the wrong accounts.
I've had to delete set that way.
But, you know, you've you realise thatmistake quite quickly.
You want to do that once. Yeah.
So yeah.
So attention to detail number one.
(18:14):
But you can be really good at like accountmanagement, client management,
organising, reporting.
And that's one avenue you can go down.
You can pay to sort of plannerplumbing side of this
social media.
Or you can be more creative.
You can do the way to do it.
(18:35):
And any advice for anyonelooking to enter this industry?
I would just say go for itif you want to do it.
And if you're thinkingabout getting into it, just do it.
It's not for everyone.
It's not as glamorous as you thinkit is, especially at the beginning.
It can be long hours, but yeah, or try it.
(18:58):
See what you're good at,because it might be that
they start off and stuff in social media.
And if you're in an agency like, oh,actually I like the client services side,
but so you go down that route or no,
I want to make TikToks,I want to edit videos and everything.
But the creative side of it, I well,
(19:20):
I think they're in social medianow for longer than I care to admit.
And no day is ever the same.
Things are always changing.
I don't thinkthat Facebook is your friend.
Oh. Facebook is not your friend.
Because as soon as you think you've,if you've cracked it, they change it.
They put things in the differentin the wrong place.
(19:42):
So yes,my things are always changing. Busy.
It's frustratingbut rewarding in equal measures.
And I like the community side of thingsand like talking to people online and,
and and building up relationships
and connecting with customers online.
So I like that side of things.
So it can be rewardingin a, in a different sense of,
(20:04):
you know, you generallike customer relationships.
Yeah.
I'm saying, is there anything elsethat you wanted to add at all?
I don't think you need a marketing degreeto work in marketing.
I think that's probably maybe,maybe controversial,
but I don't have a marketing degree.
I don't have any formmarketing qualifications.
(20:26):
If you want to get into social media,especially in like content
and things,you can have that creative mindset
and you can come at itfrom a creative background
or like media backgroundrather than a traditional marketing
background, andespecially if you're willing to start in
(20:47):
like a junior positionand then on the job.
I think you yeah, you can
it's a good a good place to start.
And you don't need to
when I have been recruiting for like,
semi junior roles in the past,
I have not looked
(21:09):
for people to have marketing,
traditional marketing experience teams,
if they've got a bit of dependingon what their role is, we have have
got a bit of, hands on experienceif they've like interned or they,
we've done projects at university.
(21:30):
And then they've got a creativebackground.
I'd much rather
I tend to gravitate to that.
More towards someone who's got
A PHD
in
emails.
Really.
Well thank you so much for your timetoday.
That's alright. Thank you for having me.
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