Esther Brady Crawford - faintstarlite

A couple of years ago I video blogged about having a love affair with the internet… Since then there’s been an explosion in new media that serendipitously enabled me to make a living by continuing to participate within the social media space and assisting others wanting to jump on board the increasingly popular ship.

“What is it that you do?” should be a simple question. Most people answer with things we understand – computer programmer, lawyer, accountant, cashier, nurse … but when I respond with, “Social Media Manager”, I tend to get met with a lot of blank stares. Most of the time I just follow it up with, “I basically help build and work with online communities”, which sometimes brings life back into their face and other times just deepens the confusion wrinkles.

Creating a job title for what I do has even been hard for me – there are too many ‘experts’ out there claiming to have cracked the code. Not true. No such code within social media exists, despite what your company’s digital agency may try and sell you. Even the big boys have had pricey campaigns result in epic fail on the internets. Not to mention the ones that simply get punk’d by their lack of knowledge about community engagement.

My Nana recently told me she still doesn’t understand my job, or where the videos I make live. She likes to tell people I have a career ‘in the internet’. She quickly follows it up with, “and she’s been on TV”… which for my grandma is apparently the litmus test for mayjah success, because computers are still (and will forever remain) foreign to her.

It’s been odd enough seeing so many relatives in the past year join online networks I belong to, and as much as I evangelize social media tools, it’s actually quite comforting to know that I’ll never have to approve my Nana as a Facebook friend.