Here’s Why Every Company Should Hire a Social Media Nomad
Your company has social media profiles, but are they really doing you any good? If you’re sharing stock images, writing on regurgitated topics, and buying followers, you’re doing it all wrong. You need to reinvigorate your approach by turning your entire philosophy on its head.
The Changing Face of Social Media
When you look at the modern workplace, it’s clear that things are evolving. Today, millennials make up a large portion of the American workforce. Within a few years, they’ll also constitute a majority segment in executive leadership and management positions. This means that millennial philosophies and penchants will soon find their way into the ebbs and flows of everyday business decisions.
One thing is clear already: Millennials are obsessed with flexibility and want the ability to work while moving around. Nowhere is this more evident than on social media, where people take little snapshots of their lives and publish them for the world to see.
Some of the most popular figures on social media are people who travel and share their experiences with their followers. There’s something sexy, alluring, and magnetic about seeing pictures, videos, and content from individuals who have the ability to move around and experience new things on a regular basis.
The pursuit of flexibility and freedom from the shackles of 9-to-5 jobs is something that millennials crave. According to a recent study from Dialpad, 81 percent of the 500 professionals surveyed spend fewer than 40 hours per week at their desks. The vast majority of these individuals have spent some time working from home, at coffee shops, in airports, and on the road.
Why then is it that — in the midst of this evolving work mentality — businesses are still gluing social media managers to their desks? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to cut the ties that bind and let social media professionals travel the world and immerse themselves in new environments in an effort to create more authentic content that resonates with followers?
Meet the Social Media Nomad
Meet Joe. He’s a social media manager who works for a progressive company. He’s 28 years old, has spent five years bouncing around between a couple of different entry-level corporate jobs, and has just enough experience to know that he doesn’t want to work the 9-to-5 for the next 35 years of his life. So, Joe goes to his employer and presents what most would assume to be a preposterous suggestion. He wants to know if the company will pay him to travel the world and develop unique and immersive content that he believes will better influence the brand’s target audience. To his surprise, they say yes.
Joe is what we’ll call a social media nomad. He’s part of a small, yet growing trend that involves hiring social media experts who trade out their cubicles for airplane seats and travel the world to develop highly authentic content that reflects the sponsoring brand’s values and attracts people.
A social media nomad is definitely an alternative to the traditional social media manager, but there’s so much promise in this new approach. It allows for the natural creation of the sort of content that today’s users want to consume – raw and in real-time.
Usher in a New Era of Social Media
Gone are the days where social media is corporate and polished. Today’s social media is all about removing the veil that separates customers from brands and zeroing in on the millennial desire for flexibility, excitement, and authenticity.
While it’s still a relatively new idea, the social media nomad is a concept that should start catching on more. And if you want to take a chance on a way to elevate your brand above the noise, this is a stellar opportunity to make yourself known.
