What steps should I take to switch careers into social media marketing?

While this is a great question, my honest response to someone who wants to switch careers into social media marketing is don't.  "Social media" is a new field which has received a lot of hype in the past five years, but that doesn't mean it is a stable career path. Since I come from the world of marketing I learned about social media as a new form of customer engagement. However after five years working with Fortune 500 co's, startups and colleges and universities I saw social media was so much less important than other areas of marketing. If you want a kinda-social-media-related marketing job you should consider these other areas: email marketing content marketing SEO website UI/UX video marketing automation/CRM integration advertising analytics regarding all of the above Sure you may also do some work on social media, but in reality those are just channels that everyone in your organization should be utilizing and a lone social media person. Think of it this way, do companies hire telephone specialists or does everyone in a company know how to use a telephone cause it's a way to communicate with people? That's how social media will be looked at in the near future. If you go after a career in social media marketing you are pigeon holing yourself in a mix between a copywriter and someone in customer service. While that's fine, I recommend you'll be better off in the long run to consider a career in digital marketing or as the cool kids call it, growth hacking. (see what the growth hacking people did there?) People (marketers and the like) make up new words to describe old things in order to confuse people into thinking they are experts so they can charge big $ for bullshit services. This video from College Humor below explains it all. update: I forgot to answer your question: 1. go to your local meet ups about startups, marketing or social media. meet people there in real life and then follow them on whatever social media channels they use 2. use these new friends as examples and inspirations to create accounts of your own 3. start volunteering your time for local non-profits or businesses to improve their social media presence and build a portfolio of work 4. begin charging for your work or looking for a job once you have some experience and recommendations 5. find a mentor who is trust worthy and be weary of "experts" Lastly, never stop learning.

Network, network, network! Get into contact with people in the social media marketing industry and ask questions about what they job entails, what they wish they would have known when first starting out, just gain insight into what their world is all about!

I think the beauty about social media marketing is that it is still very much in its infancy and it is constantly evolving. For this reason it means we're all learning every day and for anyone to say they're an expert is a bit of a stretch. With that in mind and I hope i've explained that I don't profess to being any sort of expert, I think the best thing you can do is to throw yourself into social media and get to know how everything works, read blogs, publish your own blog, and network with leaders of social media. Good luck..

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