The Social Path

Need a job? We're hiring a social media planner.

If you’ve got a passion for social media marketing, a proven knack for organizing big projects and strong writing skills, you could be the next Social Media Planner for Birmingham-based marketing agency Luckie & Company.

You’ll be joining a team whose client work has been praised by everyone from Mashable to The New York Times, so you’ll need to show that you have the professionalism, creativity and enthusiasm to be an industry leader. Whether you come from an advertising agency, PR, interactive or journalistic background, we’re looking for someone with a solid track record of taking initiative and getting results. This position requires that you work full-time at the Luckie headquarters in Birmingham, where you will be managing the day-to-day operations of multiple client social media channels, often at the national level.

Requirements

•  3+ years of relevant experience in professional use of social media
• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, PR or a related field
• Clear examples of social media work for clients, preferably with an audience in excess of 10,000 fans or followers.
• Active experience with blogging, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest
• Excellent grammar, spelling and attention to detail
• Provide links to your publicly visible blogs and Twitter feeds
• Must complete criminal background check

Must be experienced with business use of:

• Facebook Pages and Insights
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Google+
• WordPress, TypePad or other blogging platforms
• YouTube and Vimeo
• Adobe Photoshop
• Microsoft Excel
• Google Documents

Ideal candidates also will be experienced with:

• Blogger outreach
• WordPress theme development
• Microsoft PowerPoint or KeyNote
• Radian6 or similar social analytics tools
• Web traffic analytics tools

To apply, email a resume, cover letter, electronic samples and relevant links to melissa.wheeler@luckie.com.

Luckie is an idea-obsessed 140-person agency with offices in Birmingham, San Antonio and Atlanta. Our clients include AT&T, Schick, Little Debbie, Regions Bank,Glaxo Smith Klein, Gulf Power, Asheville Tourism, Alabama Tourism, Bayer Advanced and Chick-fil-A.

Edward Bowser is Community Manager at Luckie & Company. You can contact him by email or follow him on Twitter.

Four attributes that will land you a job in social media. | Guest post by Sonny Gill

Today, The Social Path is pleased to welcome guest blogger Sonny Gill, who was recently named social media manager for DeVry University. We asked Sonny to help share some of the lessons from his hard-fought journey as a social media job seeker.

What can we say about the monster that is the job market? It’s overwhelming, jam-packed with job seekers, and, for most, has gone on long enough. I personally don’t remember a time where I’ve had so many friends on the hunt. It’s unfortunate, but it also provides others and myself an avenue to help those going through these trying times.

There have been a slew of posts talking about how to leverage social media in your job search, but I’m sharing something even deeper than the actual tools — attributes. Attributes are things that come from within, and though they can be related to job seekers of all industries, I’m sharing four that are super important in the digital job-seeking world:

Hustle

We’ve all heard it from Gary Vaynerchuk — who is inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs with his book, Crush It! — but it’s something that we need constant reminding of.

Hustle used to have a negative connotation, but today the word has taken on new meaning within the hyper-connected digital world. Your competition is out networking, creating content and staying plugged-in more than ever. The job search was always time-consuming, but now it is a full-time job.

Guts

Are you sending your résumés off and then following-up a week later with an e-mail? Stop. Right now.

OK, well don’t stop with the résumés, but take your “next steps” to a whole new level. The openness of the social Web and how companies are embracing it is evolving every day. Leverage that to venture outside of the box and reach out to prospective companies in new ways.

Find their HR managers on LinkedIn and connect with them there. Make a page on your blog dedicated not only to your résumé but also to the prospective company and create content that shows them you have what it takes to make a difference for their organization. Have some guts, go against the grain, and get noticed.

Vision

With any goal (personal or professional) there’s a vision in our mind that gives us a peek at what success looks like. There are questions we must ask ourselves” Where do I want to take my career? Who do I want to do great work for?

But it’s easy to find yourself wondering, “What do I do with this vision?” Map out a plan that helps you identify the necessary steps to get you to that goal.

Is your goal to be a Social Media Manager for an NBA team? Your plan of action better include producing quality content/media on an NBA-focused blog, attending games (as many as you’re able to go to), networking with fellow SM basketball fanatics, plus, a number of other steps that builds your authority in the space and gets you seen as someone who would make a great addition to a team’s social media effort.

Patience

I close out this list with patience for a reason. Above all, through the ups and downs of the job search (there will be both), you have to be patient. I understand everybody’s situation is different and we each have our own responsibilities to handle. But the key to patience is having faith, continuing to bust tail, truly believing that the right opportunity is out there, and persevering through the obstacles that present themselves during this time.

The combination of these attributes and the capabilities of social truly allow us to build a solid framework not only for the job hunt but also a for community, which in turn offers us continued support and affirmation on the work we do today and the opportunities in our future.

These are my four main attributes, but what others would you add that any job seeker could benefit from? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

Sonny Gill is Social Media Manager at DeVry University. You can read his thoughts on social media at SonnyGill.com or on follow @SonnyGill on Twitter.

Photo credit: Banjaxx on Flickr.