Why Social Media is the Most Misunderstood Job in Corporate America

The fact that US politicians believe TikTok is both a threat to national security and a core channel for reaching key voters perfectly illustrates the tension at the heart of social media: Senators want to engage with TikTok, but they want to do so on their own terms. This is the very conundrum facing marketing teams and brands, but magnified on a geopolitical scale.

Eight of the 10 most valuable companies in the world derive their revenue from the attention economy, yet social media as a discipline has only been around for the past decade or so. In that time, we've seen a major shift from predominantly text-based platforms like Facebook and Twitter to image-based platforms like Instagram and TikTok becoming the primary channels for both users and advertisers.

I interviewed four social media industry executives to get their thoughts on how the landscape of the industry and the work itself have changed dramatically over the past decade.

The evolution of social media and the rise of TikTok

Kate Winick moved from a traditional editorial background to social media over 10 years ago, taking on the role of Social Media Manager at Elle magazine in 2013. At the time, Kate saw this as an opportunity to incorporate data into traditional media in an entirely new way.

“Instead of just posting a story, your mom reads it, and someone says your article was good, all of a sudden you have real-time traffic monitoring and you know if your story is resonating with people,” she said.

For Winick, who most recently led social media at Peloton, the biggest change was moving from a focus on copy to one on image and video.

“I joke that if I had a dollar for every time I pivoted to video in the last 13 years, I'd be retired by now,” she says. Video has long been a goal for platforms, but she points out that it's also incredibly expensive to produce because “video is really sticky and people spend a lot of time watching it.” Perhaps that explains why it's taken so long for the medium to catch on. TikTok solved this problem by turning its users into creators, enabling explosive growth to 1.5 billion users and becoming the fourth-largest platform in the world (after Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram).

Bari Tippett (currently head of social at Sweetgreen) has spent her entire career in social media, and is quick to highlight how much its role has changed over the past decade: from managing all social channels for multiple brands on the agency side, to the growth of a dedicated in-house team, to the advent of video. “I had to really figure out how to make short-form videos on my iPhone,” says Tippett. “The first TikTok I made took me an hour, but now I can make TikToks in my sleep.”

Winick added that while the “interns running social media” metaphor isn't an accurate depiction of what was happening within marketing teams, in the early days of social media it was “a very difficult and undervalued individual contributor role.”

However, things have changed and social is now seen as a powerful channel, with much higher visibility for professionals tasked with managing a brand's social presence.

The Changing Role of Social Media Executives

Another tension at the heart of social media, Winick said, centers on the demographics of some of the medium's biggest consumers. “I don't want this to be an age thing, and I'm tired of it being an age thing, but there's a certain amount of social media that's really pop-culture driven, and when pop culture isn't made for you anymore, you become less relevant.” So “there's a recognition and concern from leaders that if kids aren't kids anymore, can they really understand what they're talking about?”

Tippett has a similar view: “I say now I’m like an actress: I come to work and I perform as Sweetgreen.
Sweet Green
“That's my nine-to-five job, and I think that's what's really fun about social,” he says, but adds that changing expectations of both brands and consumers have put a lot of pressure on social media teams. Customers want to feel part of the conversation, so they expect faster responses. “It's not just about posting, it's about building relationships with people online all day, every day. Social never sleeps.”

Nathan Pocart (who has worked on social media for brands like American Eagle and BMW) believes that “the role of social media will always be misunderstood because it's different for each brand,” primarily because brands “define social media for different stages of the marketing funnel.” He further explains that there can be a degree of cognitive dissonance even among social media experts. A CMO might be happy to share a viral video that gets 10 million views in a boardroom meeting, while viewing the team that created it as fundamentally disingenuous: “Oh, the TikTok guys.”

Social media moves from a customer retention strategy to a growth channel

From his early days in editorial (driving users to consume more content) to his most recent five-year stint at Peloton, Winick has seen social evolve from a customer retention tool to a growth and acquisition channel. “You don’t necessarily know anymore what someone’s first touchpoint was: did they see our bike at a friend’s house, did they see our TV commercial, did they get our promotional materials in the mail, did they first discover us on social, did they see one of our instructors on Good Morning America?” In this context, social should be treated like any other brand touchpoint: “Social is the brand and the brand is social.”

Poekert argues that “80% of social channels are focused on the top of the funnel, and attribution is so weak right now that you can't measure the direct impact of social media down the funnel,” but Winick adds, “It was very clear that this could drive significant hockey stick growth for brands and news outlets that figured out how to use this effectively and get their content in front of other people.”

How to build a career in social media

Zaria Parvez (described by the publication as “one of the most influential voices in corporate social media”) admits that the first year of her career was “just figuring out what it means to work in social media,” but Zaria still recognized TikTok's huge potential.

“TikTok announced that it had hit 1 billion monthly active users, but at the time, I don't think anyone owned TikTok the way that, say, Wendy's owns Twitter. It felt like a cool challenge to do it in my little corner of Pittsburgh.”

At the same time, Parvez recognized that it was important to have clear metrics: “Even if a viral video gets 10 million views, the question remains: what does that amount to?” One approach Duolingo took was to
Duolingo
The company does this through onboarding surveys, which help attributing new users in a way that's typically not possible through social channels, “allowing us to demonstrate our influence and get more buy-in for riskier ideas and budgets.”

In Parvez's view, succeeding on social requires “a very strong test and learn mentality, and I always say, you can't plan virality, but you can plan it…I don't have a button that goes viral, but there are things you can do to create an environment that creates virality that ultimately leads to new users.” Kate adds that there is also an element of judgement involved, saying, “As a senior leader, have you developed an instinct to notice when something is happening and make a judgement call as to whether this is something for your brand?”

For Parvez, the underlying tension of social media is clear: “You need to entertain, not sell, but I'm not sure all brands have fully embraced that mindset. It's something we're all still facing, and I think the brands that can do this will be successful.” Ultimately, Parvez believes, “You need to be willing to take risks, to push things forward, and to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.”