In this blog post, I am looking at my personal short term future career for when my university career comes to an end. Since the beginning of my communication and media degree, I have always wanted to peruse a career in a social media management career I, therefore, have decided to research this career to increase my ability to attain this career.

While conducting some research I discovered a ton of research has been done on social media being integral to a business to strive in the modern world as well as research into social media managers as an emerging career to peruse.

I found Jacobson’s paper ‘You are a brand: social media managers’ branding and “the future audience”’ looks at social media management as an emerging profession and what current employees treat their social media and how “always on the job market’ to maintain their employment.   

Another source found is Samuels’s ‘9 skills every social media manager must have’ illustrates the skill and technical abilities that are needed to succeed in this industry to become more employable, and also recommends additional sources to improve in the areas that the reader may need to improve on. The skills involve “communication, writing, creativity, efficiency, traditional and digital, customer care, making connections, agility, data analysis. 

While Marianna Sigala & Ulrike Gretzel’s book ‘Advances in Social Media for Travel, Tourism and Hospitality : New Perspectives, Practice and Cases, New Directions in Tourism Analysis, Routledge’ details the importance of social media in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry and explains the innovation and techniques that social media managers are recommended to succussed in their career.

Another source I found is ANZ, LH’s paper ‘Introducing the Newest Member of Your Hotel Marketing Team: The Social Media Manager’ presents the social media manager position and responsibilities that are required of her/her.

The final source of my research that I have done was Mountifield, C & Sharpe’s paper ‘Managing Social Media Content During a Global Crisis: Interview With Ben Read, Social Media Manager at World in Motion’ explains how Covid 19 has affected social media content which is integral to learn about as it is most likely to affect my employment in the future and I need to stay up to date with the new techniques of social media marketing strategies to remain employable in the future.

References:

ANZ, LH 2010, ‘Introducing the Newest Member of Your Hotel Marketing Team: The Social Media Manager’, HVS International Journal, pp. 1–3, viewed 26 April 2021, <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=56567872&site=ehost-live&gt;.

Jacobson, J 2020, ‘You are a brand: social media managers’ branding and “the future audience”’, Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 715–727, viewed 25 April 2021, <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=inh&AN=20202294&site=ehost-live&gt;.

Marianna Sigala & Ulrike Gretzel 2017, Advances in Social Media for Travel, Tourism and Hospitality : New Perspectives, Practice and Cases, New Directions in Tourism Analysis, Routledge, [N.p.], viewed 25 April 2021, <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1560789&site=ehost-live&gt;.

Mountifield, C & Sharpe, S 2020, ‘Managing Social Media Content During a Global Crisis: Interview With Ben Read, Social Media Manager at World in Motion’, International Journal of Sport Communication, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 300–306, viewed 26 April 2021, <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=145727424&site=ehost-live&gt;.

Samuels, R 2021, ‘9 skills every social media manager must have’ Sprout Social, weblog post, 26 March, viewed 25 April 2021