How to become a social media manager: Building a career online

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 versus in-house life, going viral in the early days, and why you don't need to be an influencer to work in social

Participants

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ
• Emily Sherwin - social media lead, Jisc

Transcript

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You, the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ. I'm your host, Emily Slade, and in this episode, I chat to Emily about being a social media manager.

Emily Sherwin: So my name is Emily Sherwin, and I am the social media lead at Jisc.

Emily Slade: Amazing. So let's go right back to the beginning. What does your educational journey look like?

Emily Sherwin: I wanted to study photography and do art and things, and they did art at school, but they didn't do photography. So I went to college. I did art, photography, English literature and business studies. And then I decided to do art foundation after my A-levels, which I quickly realised that's what I needed to do if I wanted to study photography, at a good art school or university for my degree. So yes, I did art foundation, that was probably the best year of my life. Had a great time. Yeah. Then I went to Camberwell College of Arts down in London. So again, that was a good three years of just doing whatever I wanted to do. So I graduated in 2013. A very long time ago now. Quite scary, feeling very old. And then I sort of was like, okay, now what? So I got a part-time job and I interned at a place called Camberwell Press, which is a, I don't know if it's still going or 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 ex-students and like the course, some of the graphic design course directors. So I was their online editor. So I did stuff for that website and then sort of did their social media as well. And that was like a year-long part-time internship. 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 I was working part time on the cheese counter at Waitrose. So I have started applying for a few jobs. I didn't really want to be a full-time photographer, mainly because I didn't want to put the work in to become freelance and I didn't want to take photos of babies. So it's like, oh, I need something somewhere down the middle. I applied for a job and got an interview. Evans Cycles, for like a sort of content creator, like an editor/blog writer. I didn't get the job, but I was like, oh, yeah, maybe I want to work in cycling. Cycling has always been a big passion of mine. I've always cycled, like been going to watch Tour de France since I was little. My parents are really into it. So then I was like, okay, 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 enjoyed sport. Started interning there for a few months, basically being a general dog's body, like it was PR intern. But then I also did a bit of social media there, and they sort of dabbled in it for a few of their clients, and then they offered me a full-time position as a PR and social assistant. So I managed to, you know, leave the hazy, hazy days of cheese and fish counters at Waitrose behind me. And yeah, started working full time at agency, and that was a real sort of learn on the job. I had no experience really of, well, definitely not of PR, no experience of social apart from like, I mean Instagram then was this was like, this is in 2015. So Instagram had been around for a few years, but no, nowhere near as big as it is now. It's when you could still go viral very easily.

Emily Slade: Back in the good days.

Emily Sherwin: And that magic viral button was a thing. Yeah. And it was before GDPR and stuff. So it was really easy. So yeah, I started working there and then so quickly realised 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. And so the social side of the business was growing. It was a small agency. I think there were only about 5 or 6 of us when I first joined. So it was a good time to kind of like dictate like have a say in how we wanted things to run and what we could do for clients. So yeah, so I learned on the job, learned from my director who had looked after the social accounts before that. 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 quite big clients in the cycling world. So I've sort of come full circle, and Evans Cycles became a client of ours. And so I was working with the people who had interviewed me a few years previously. At times, it was stressful. 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 myself, and at points, it felt like maybe I was close to burnout? I don't know, I feel like maybe that word is bounded around quite a lot, but, yeah, it was it was rewarding and challenging at the same time. Yeah. So I was there for about five, six years and then was made redundant, which is the nature of being agency side. 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 agency and this time it was a creative agency. So advertising and yes, then luckily I'd gotten that job at the end of 2019. 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 like learning on the job. It was a new environment. I hadn't worked in advertising before, massive budgets compared to having a grand to put behind a Facebook post. I was sort of in the studio and with the creatives as well. So, that spoke to my creative side and then decided that. So this was still in London, I'd stayed in London after university. And then I decided that London life wasn't for me anymore, and I wanted to move back to Manchester, back home. I started looking for a job that was a bit more flexible, based in Manchester. And yeah, I came across Jisc. I was actually pointed to the job by my dad who has been, had well he's retired now, but he'd worked for part of Jisc and saw the job advertised. So he sent it to me and then. Yeah, then I got the job in social media. It was sort of a new role within the team. So. Yeah. So yes. And I've been at Jisc for two years.

Emily Slade: Yeah. So Jisc is more of an in-house position. So what would you say are the main differences between the agency life that you've spoken a bit about and, and an in-house life, as it were?

Emily Sherwin: It's completely different. It's nice not having to deal with demanding clients. Should we say, who don't think you deserve a weekend. So yeah. So it's a different pace of life. They. Yeah. Agency side can be really fast paced in some ways but very slow in other ways. For example, there was an audio trend a few years ago, the Louis Theroux rap.

Emily Slade: My money don't jiggle jiggle.

Emily Sherwin: And I wanted to jump on that trend. As many of those businesses, brands were doing so I was like right. Made something in about an hour and then 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 over.

Emily Slade: It was done. It was over. Yeah.

Emily Sherwin: Yeah. So by the time it went out, I just, we just looked a bit silly. It was a lot of bureaucracy and especially the automotive firm I worked for. We had a UK client, but then sometimes things would have to go through legal. They would have to go to Europe. As the UK, reported into Europe. And sometimes again, that had to go into Korea, which is where they were based. So a long, very long chain of approvals sometimes. And also time differences and things. So yeah. So if you want to just put something out quickly, it would have to be checked for lots of different people. You couldn't just put something out immediately. So the agency world and clients moved very quickly. But then on the flip side, there's a lot of eyes and things are higher stakes, so you can't just. Yeah, turnaround times can be slower. Yes. And then in-house, being in-house. I do actually have ownership of our social brand. I tend to voice a presence strategy which, you know, when I'd been applying for jobs and interviewing at different agencies and things, that was always like, okay, you really get that was always a sell. Like, yeah, you really get oh, ownership of a brand, but ultimately you're working for the client. So you, you, you can have a say, you can shape it, but you don't get the 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 I want it to look? This is what I want to say, and this is how I want to position Jisc and yeah. And most of the time that comes to fruition. Jisc 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 slower when you're not answering to clients. It's not usually that sense of like life and death urgency. I'm very much enjoying that life at the moment. But then again, like if I want to jump on a trend, if we've got some like an audio 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 checked by one other person. And, you know, just to like, especially if we're talking about like, product on the security or something that I don't have a 100% understanding of, but most of the time I can get sort of turned around very quickly, which is nice.

Emily Slade: Yeah. So would you say that you have to be good, social media in your personal life in order to be able to make a career out of it?

Emily Sherwin: No.

Emily Slade: Okay.

Emily Sherwin: This is something I find really frustrating sometimes because I've worked with clients before who have been a client at the agency, and they have then decided to take social in-house, which is fine. Good, I think social the day to day social running should be done in-house where possible, but they've bypassed and sort of got rid of like a wealth of social expertise and resourcing to cut costs, which is fine. But then they've recruited people 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 Instagram followers, which was great. Good for you. But then you could see the difference in the output after we stopped working with them. And I don't think you need to be a social media influencer to be a social media manager. If anything, I think the two don't really work that well together, especially if you're trying to grow your own brand. Your personal brand, is it at odds with what you'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.

Emily Slade: So what changes have you seen in the social landscape?

Emily Sherwin: A lot. So when I said before 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 could there was no real like governance on data and it was easier to like, reach new people and go for people without needing to pay for it. Now. Like if you wanted to create a new Instagram account or a new TikTok, or launch a brand and social, it's quite hard to just grow a following really quick like. Whereas when I started you could just follow people, do a bit of outreach community management and you could get build the community relatively quickly and checkpoint. Now you need, which in some ways is better. Now you need like a full like a real social first strategy. But so it's a lot harder and 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 presence on social.

Emily Slade: And looking slightly to the future. Well, the present really. AI. Is that going to steal everyone's jobs and ruin everything? Or does it make your lives a billion times better? Or do you not know?

Emily Sherwin: I don't think it's going to steal everyone's jobs, because. So we use AI a little bit, especially when I'm doing paid social campaigns. If we need to write a lot of copy in one go, if we need lots of different ad variations. Copy variations, I know it's really useful for telling me what I don't want to write it. Well, it can give me a lot of different variations of ad copy, which is great. And then more often than not, I'll be like, no, no, that sounds rubbish. Let me change it. But I've got the bare bones there, so it's good to make, things more efficient and quicker. And that means we can build campaigns easier. But there's still the need, for. Yeah, creative thinking and people interaction.

Emily Slade: Nice. So what skills would you say you need to be a good social media manager?

Emily Sherwin: A lot of job descriptions will tell you that you need to be a, project manager, a planner, a paid social expert, a data scientist, a photographer, a videographer, an editor. I think that is a load of crap. It makes my blood boil when you see some like that and it's. And there's no salary on it at all, or 27 grand or something, and you're asking people to do about 17 different jobs. So that is to a certain degree, that is the nature of it. And that's that's how I learn the ropes by doing a bit of everything. But that was very junior position and it was in a small agency. So it was all hands to the deck. But I think there's most social media managers or account managers depend if you're working in an agency or in-house, will be you'll either be they can't run into all the creative so 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 it matters, I can, I will be organised. But you know, you don't need to plan everything in minute detail. You still need to be reactive and flexible and social. But a creative mindset I think is very important. An analytical mind as well. I don't really like the reporting side of things. I'll look at things, I'll look at data and I'll look at content to see if it's performing well and if things have landed well, or if we're doing if we're not doing great, we need to, you know, put some put some more effort into it. But that's not what gets me out of bed in the morning. You don't need to be a jack of all trades, obviously it's great if you are, but you can specialise in, like, the creative side of things to, like, being a good writer. Attention to detail actually is the one thing you do need as a social media. There's because I've had instances where I've put posts out on the wrong accounts. I've had to delete it straight away.

Emily Sherwin: But, you know, you've you realise that mistake quite quickly.

Emily Slade: You want to do that once. Yeah.

Emily Sherwin: So yeah. So attention to detail number one. But you can be really good at like account management, client management, organising, reporting. And that's one avenue you can go down. You can pay to sort of planner, planning side of social media. Or you can be more creative. Be the do-er.

Emily Slade: And any advice for anyone looking to enter this industry?

Emily Sherwin: I would just say go for it if you want to do it. And if you're thinking about getting into it, just do it. It's not for everyone. It's not as glamorous as you think it is, especially at the beginning. It can be long hours, but yeah, or try it. See what you're good at, because it might be that they start off 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 you can be in the more creative side of it, I well, I've been doing social media now for longer than I care to admit. And no day is ever the same. Things are always changing. Don't think Facebook is your friend.

Emily Slade: Oh?

Emily Sherwin: Facebook is not your friend. Because as soon as you think you've cracked it, they change it. They put things in the different, in the wrong place. So yes, things are always changing. It's frustrating but rewarding in equal measures. And I like the community side of things and like talking to people online and, and building up relationships and connecting with customers online. So I like that side of things. So it can be rewarding in a, in a different sense of, you know, you general like customer relationships.

Emily Slade: Yeah. Amazing. Is there anything else that you wanted to add at all?

Emily Sherwin: I don't think you need a marketing degree to work in marketing. I think that's probably maybe, maybe controversial, but I don't have a marketing degree. I don't have any formal marketing qualifications. 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 it from a creative background or like media background rather than a traditional marketing background, and especially if you're willing to start in like a junior position and learn on the job. I think you yeah, I think it's a good place to start. And you don't need to - when I have been recruiting for like, junior roles in the past, I have not looked for people to have marketing, traditional marketing experience teams, if they've got a bit of depending on what their role is, we have have got a bit of, hands on experience if they've like interned or they, they've done projects at university. And then they've got a creative background. I'd much rather I tend to gravitate to that. More towards someone who's got. Yeah, a PhD in emails.

Emily Slade: Brilliant, well thank you so much for your time today.

Emily Sherwin: That's alright. Thank you for having me.

Emily Slade: Thanks again to Emily for their time. For more information on working in social media, head to Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ.ac.uk. For a full-length video version of this episode, check out our YouTube channel @futureyoupod. If you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. Thank you as always for listening and good luck on your journey to future you.

Notes on transcript

This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.

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