I work a lot with social media content makers — the foot-soldiers that actually make the graphics, craft the reels, and who write the posts — and I’ve noticed a kind of tragic pattern.
The best way to explain is with an example from my time at BBC Three.
A while before I started as Digital Development Editor, a new social media person had taken over writing the channel’s tweets and the change had been fantastic.
The new tweets — full of personality, humour and mischief — had transformed our social presence. It had made us well… cool.
But unfortunately (at least for the channel) because this person was smart and ambitious, they were soon promoted and, by the time I’d left, were spending a lot less time tweeting, instead focusing on management and other roles at the channel.
And sadly, as a result, the channel’s social presence lost its sparkle.
I’m not blaming her — social content is hard work and the pay and status of higher-up jobs is attractive. Besides, the new work was something she wanted to do.
But over the years I’ve noticed this again and again: social media content creators with real talent moving away from where they add the most value.
The problem is that too often publishers see these content creation jobs as junior, and don’t pay or value them sufficiently.
To my mind, it should be more like football. In that industry, it’s recognised that it’s the *players* that add the most value, and their pay and status reflect that. The industry isn’t in a rush to for footballers to get away from the boring stuff like scoring goals so they can focus on “strategy”.
If someone has the rare content skills to sparkle on social, let’s make sure promoting them doesn’t stop them doing what’s most valuable!