Social Media Salary Report: Ladies, It's Not Pretty

Those of you who frequent this blog know I'm obsessed with social media salaries--I post about the lack of social media salary and title data quite frequently.

So you know I jumped at the chance to participate in Forum One Network's Online Community & Social Media Compensation survey for 2009 because by doing so I would get a copy of the results. Well, those results are out now. If you want to see the whole thing you'll have to purchase a copy; however, I can share these facts: (most of these I've taken directly from the product description; hopefully that's ok by Forum One Networks.)

• The gap between the average male and female salaries widened, with male respondents averaging $86,644 (up from $85,423 in ’08) and females averaging $75,624 (down from $77,319 in ’08).


• The majority of respondents reported a salary increase in 2009, but the percentage compared to last year was down, as was a significant increase in the number of respondents who took a salary decrease in 2009 compared to 2008.


• Average overall job satisfaction was down by a fraction, from 4.2 (out of 5) in 2008 to 4.1 (out of 5) in 2009.


• Several respondents mentioned feeling like they were being inadequately compensated because of lack of data available regarding community and social media salaries, as well as lack of understanding of community and social media ROI relative to their organization’s activities.

I'm going to pause and reflect on that first bullet point because, frankly, I am disappointed. All you read about is how females are dominating the online world: they dominate social networking sites, are seen by marketers as carrying the largest share of online influence, and they make up a rapidly-increasing share of the market for video games.

Forum One's 2008 study of this same subject found that 55% of community manager positions were held by women. While that number decreased slightly this year (52% of the respondents were women), 52% is still a majority . Why, then, the substantial disparity in incomes between male and female community managers? And why the widening gap (women make 87% of what men make, according to the 2009 survey, while last year that figure was 91%)?

It's bad enough that female social media speakers are being ignored; now you're telling me that even though women are often considered to be better suited to online community management, they're making way less than men at it?

What's up with this? What can be done to keep this trend from continuing?

Report Finds Most DC-based Associations Still Cautious Towards Social Media

I just read about a new report called "Social Media and Advocacy Analysis 2009: Social media and advocacy tools employed by America's leading trade associations, pressure groups and cause organizations," prepared by Marc Ross, Christine Stineman, and Chris Lisi of 2ndSix, Tribe Effect and Chris Lisi Communications. The report is a little confusing to me; basically they looked at what seem to be a totally random selection of 102 of "America's leading trade associations, issue advocacy groups and cause organizations" to rate each on the extent to which they were each using 14 different social media or online communication tools, and then ranked them according to the mere adoption of the tools, not how they were using them or anything.

I was thinking their data collection seemed a little haphazard, then I read some other posts and realized I'm not the only one thinking it. Not only are people finding the methodology of basing results solely on whether or not the organizations had accounts on each of the 14 platforms, but one of the organizations cited in the report--American Petroleum Institute--points out that they actually are using a number of the tools. Seems like maybe the data collection methods were a little lacking?

One question posed in the report stuck out to me:

"And can someone explain what's up with the National Electrical Contractors Association, and why it's more web savvy than the National Rifle Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Communications Workers (to pick randomly from the rest of the list)?"

Yes--I can take a stab at it with two words: staff champion. I would be willing to bet that National Electrical Contractors Association has on staff a person who is in his/her personal life an avid social media user. Apparently the others, not so much. Although I personally think CEA does a great job with social media--witness their upcoming "Mommmy Tech Summit and Exhibition" at CES in January. (ok, technically I don't know if this qualifies as totally a CEA initiative, but I think it's cool anyway).

It's no mystery that most associations are still grappling with how to staff social media efforts. This is also not the first time they've been called out for not embracing social media; remember Seth Godin's rant about nonprofits? It's interesting to note that both Seth Godin and the authors of this report make the same mistake, however: putting all the emphasis on the mere act of having accounts on social sites or a certain number of followers, rather than on how organizations are actually using the tools.

Forget Twentysomethings; Let Carol Brady Teach You Social Media

I thought I'd gotten it out of my system--my weariness about constantly reading/hearing about how "young" people are the only ones who can inherently "get" social media because they've grown up with it....but like a pesky stomach bug that seems to go away only to return with a vengeance, I had to stumble on this post and now I'm back in rant mode. Most annoying quotes from this piece:

"In formal programs or informal sit-downs, companies are assigning junior staff members to serve as social media guides for their senior ones."

"Many organizations eager to strengthen their presence in the online world have discovered that they have the perfect consultants on their staffs: 20-somethings who live in that world."

Dude. We ALL live in that world now. My freakin' MOM is 70 and she "lives in that world"--recommends video blogs about makeup, refers me to articles about Facebook and Twitter, keeps me up to date on what the Bloggess is up to. Carol Brady (I mean, Florence Henderson) lives in that world and wants to be the steward to other older people. So does Jane Fonda.

Pretty please, mainstream media--can you stop perpetuating the myth that the only appropriate guides for "older" people into the scary world of social media are "younger" people? Seriously. It's getting really, well, old.

Social Media Ageism Rant

I'll start this post off by acknowledging that it's admittedly probably half-baked because this issue is a hot button one for me. That issue being the perpetuation that social media careers are for "young" people.

I was thinking I just had a chip on my shoulder--what with me being 41 and a social media professional--but was heartened to see other people posting about this same issue, so it's not just me.

At any rate, in today's SmartBrief on Social Media one of the headlines caught my eye: "Job market booming for social-media gurus". Cool. I've blogged before about my doubts about the viability of social media as a career choice; I'm happy to say that my doubts are currently in remission as I've just been offered an awesome new community & social media manager position, as have several other people I know. So of course I clicked the link to read about what I'm already finding to be true--that there are lots of social media jobs popping up.

I was disappointed, though, to read the opening sentence: "Calling all wired-in 20-somethings with a flair for Facebook and a talent with Twitter: you can make a career out of your perpetual online presence." The article includes this quote: ""What younger people bring to the table is that they understand social media culture, because it's actually the culture they live in."

Please. Can we stop with the notion that ALL young people are natural social media "experts" because they, unlike older people, live and breathe social media? First of all, not all of them do. Second of all, plenty of us dinosaur-like Gen-Xers and Boomers have been logging some serious online networking time for many a year. While I personally can't lay claim to the whole Prodigy thing, I have been an active participant in online networks for well over 10 years. Wrote one of my favorite blog posts about just that subject, as a matter of fact.

I'll stop here by saying this: we don't advertise certain career tracks as just for men or just for white people--that's called discrimination. The same is true for suggesting that only certain age groups are qualified for certain jobs. So how about we all agree to just leave age out of the social media job equation?

From Rogue Member to Board Member...Reform At DMA

I meant to blog about this last week when I first read about it but never got around to it. Sometimes procrastination has its virtues, however--now you get not only the set-up but also the resolution...

Every month I look forward to receiving Associations Now, for one main reason: Lisa Junker's fictional case studies. I'm serious. I love them. Both my son and I are HUGE "what if...?" people, and delight in coming up with random questions like "how long would it take you to pick up a huge bag of flour spilled on the floor, piece by piece, with a chopstick?" or "What would you do if my head suddenly popped off and I was an alien?" (My son did actually ask that first question a few weeks ago; the second I posed to a group of friends back in college. And no, I wasn't stoned when I asked it.)

In short, I like random things, exciting things, unusual things...even if they're fictional disasters, like Lisa's case studies. So last week when I read this tweet from Kevin Gilnack:



naturally I was curious and clicked through to read what he was talking about. It was a doozy! "Rogue" member, legal action, possible member riot, etc.

I wondered if anyone else was talking about this guy; turns out lots of people were weighing in about this "rogue" member.

Come on, you're thinking--this guy is just some crazy, bitter ex-board member--who's going to listen to him? Except, wait a minute--if you check out his website (actually, at the time of this writing, the site merely says "update coming"--I saw it a few days ago and he had a lot of stuff up there. Hopefully it will be back up shortly), the guy has a lot of valid points. Then you notice that the DMA had to change the venue for its October 18 business meeting...to a much larger room, presumably to accommodate a bigger crowd than originally anticipated.

Ok, so fast forward--this guy received his cease and desist letter and just faded into the woodwork, right? Um, actually, wrong...he just got elected to the board, along with two other "reform-oriented" colleagues.

Woah.

What's the moral of this story? One pissed off member CAN make a huge difference and can impact the future of your association. I'm sure this isn't the first time something like this has happened and I'm sure it will not be the last.

Now You Can Breathe Easier About Your Brand On Facebook

Worried that someone is going to jack your brand on Facebook and set up a Page, claiming to be you? Well, worry no more--Facebook is coming to the rescue--albeit late and also only as far as Pages go. You're still on your own as far as groups go, sadly...but maybe Facebook will come up with a remedy for that one of these days.

You can now use this form to authenticate your Page. There are 3 ways to prove you're the authentic representative:

1. Add a badge or a Fan Box widget to your website that links to your Facebook Page.

2. Add an email address that is officially affiliated with the entity of your Page to your personal Facebook account. You can also add the email address of a company authorized to manage your brand (e.g., management or PR firm).

3. Add another admin to your Page who has an email address that is officially affiliated with the entity your Page represents.

If you for some reason can't do any of the above 3, you can still plead your case by giving a brief description what your Page represents and how you are affiliated with it.

Infidelity 2.0 Redux

Guy Kawasaki just tweeted this:



And all I could think was "I called that!"

According to this article, there has been an "astronomical increase" in Internet-related affairs over the past 3 years. Did I not blog my prediction of this back in March?

Between this and the fact that I had a psychic feeling that Jamie Notter was at Dick's Sporting Goods the other day when I was there and it turned out he actually was there at that exact time, I'm thinking maybe I should start reading palms or something.

Why I Went With a MacBook Instead of a Netbook

Ok, well, truth be told, the real reason is that the decision was made for me when my husband--henceforth to be known as BEST HUSBAND IN THE UNIVERSE--arrived home last week with a big box for me. Inside? A shiny new MacBook.

We'd been hemming and hawing about this purchase for a long, long time. We have 3 computers in this house, plus his laptop from work. Actually, I guess you can also count my old laptop that's missing a few keys but still works...if you're patient enough to hit those keys just so with the tip of your pinkie nail...preferably an acrylic nail. So we are a household replete with computers--yet none of them work very well. They take forever to start up. They freeze. They get hung up and it takes forever to even close a window. Basically if you just want to run over to a computer, turn it on real quick, and check a movie time...or, say, type up a quick blog post--forget it. Occasionally you're able to operate pretty well, especially if I'm hooked up to my work computer via remote desktop. But let's just say Patrick has had to listen to more than his fair share of me complaining about frozen, slow or just crappy computers.

Last Christmas we were talking about it and he almost got me a netbook. At my birthday in June we talked about it again, and once again he almost got me a netbook. But lucky for me we have a good friend who is a Mac zealot who must have worked his magic on Patrick because all I know is that after a particularly bad day in PC hell in the McGary house last weekend, I am suddenly the ecstatic owner of a Macbook.

I will spare you the rant about how good this Mac is....but rest assured it IS good and if I never had to sit in front of a PC again I'd be one happy gal. My friend Paul just sent me a link to a post that makes me gladder than I already am that I didn't go the netbook route: "Fast Food Apple Pies and Why Netbooks Suck."

Granted, I can't say for sure whether they do actually suck--but I loved that post and I LOVE my Macbook.

Oh, and in the spirit of the FTC's new guidelines about disclosure I'll add that I only WISH I got so much as a glance from Mac for free....both my iPod and my MacBook were fully paid for by us...and worth every penny.

All That is Wrong With Social Media: House Party

I guess it goes without saying that by writing this post I'm probably killing my chances of being given the privilege of ever hosting a House Party. But I just can't hold my tongue so here goes.

Last week a friend posted a link to a video on Facebook, asking whether we all thought it was a joke or what. The video was of a Windows 7 "launch party"--and surely had to be an SNL skit or a joke or something. I responded that it wasn't a joke, it was the PR masterpiece known as the House Party. Because everyone knows that nothing makes people want to buy a product more than an "authentic" endorsement by "real people"--forget that phony paid advertising model. No, studies have proven that there is no endorsement so powerful as that of that most influential group of people currently on the planet: moms. People trust them. People base buying decisions on their recommendations. So the key to selling your product is getting a "real" mom to tell the world how great it is.

Sorry--do I sound snarky? Seriously, though, how can you not be at least a little snarky about the whole sponsored post thing? I read blogs that are entertaining, funny, informative, well-written. You know--authentic? So I can't help but find posts like this one distasteful: a PR agency Jessica Smith of Fleishman-Hillard's Sacramento office (for specifics on Jessica and the views expressed in her blog, please refer to the sidebar of her blog) coaching bloggers on how to attract bling what she wants to see on their "about me" pages (See Update for details about strikethroughs). Is this what blogging has come to? Press kits telling big brands why they should pick us to pimp their stuff?

Here's the thing: how much actual money are bloggers making out of this equation, versus how much PR agencies and brands are making? Take House Party, for instance. You want to host a Hunt's tomato party? First you have to spend 10 minutes filling out a detailed survey to see if you're worthy. If you happen to have the right number and mix of followers and blog readers, you get a few packs of tomato seeds, some cans of tomato paste, some recipes and maybe an apron. In exchange you have to host a party at your house and video, photograph, blog, and/or in some other way broadcast this party generously "sponsored" by Hunt's. They get "authentic" word-of-mouth advertising to their target audience for the cost of a few party favors--oh, plus the thousands of dollars the middlemen in this equation made. Everyone wins...except for the party host.

The thing is--don't brands and PR agencies see what a joke this whole thing is becoming? House parties are just a glaring example of the wrongness of the abomination that is PR mixing with bloggers, trying to make the whole thing look authentic. Here's the thing: there is nothing authentic about a blogger doing infomercials. We all know they got the stuff for free, are being coached on what to say, and it's just not interesting or fun for anyone but the person receiving the free product--and the PR people or other middlemen making actual money connecting brands and bloggers.

If by some miracle I do get picked to host a House Party--because you know I applied for every single one just to see what would happen--you can bet it will be the one and only one I ever get picked to do because I'll be doing it as one big drinking game or other not-what-the-sponsor-intended variation. Hey--at least it would be fun to watch--isn't that what brands should want?

**Update**

I received an email from Jessica Smith, via Facebook, expressing her distaste for the way I represented her post. Rather than leaving a comment here, as is customary, you know, on blogs, she felt it necessary to email me and threaten to "escalate...to the leadership at Social Media Today and formally ask for a correction" the fact that I attributed her post to a PR agency when, in fact, the sidebar of her blog states "JessicaKnows.com is published by Jessica Smith of Fleishman-Hillard's Sacramento office." So please let the record show that I stand corrected and will let Social Media Today know, myself, of my attribution error, lest she have to take it upon herself to "escalate things." Let the record also show that she also thought my "reference to (her) post and the context around it (was) completely inappropriate."

Duly noted.

How Will SideWiki Affect Your Association?

Still thinking social media is just a fad you're going to ride out? Still thinking you don't have the staff resources to bother with monitoring what's being said about your organization--let alone attempt to facilitate that conversation on your own turf? Guess you better think again now that Google SideWiki is in the picture.

At the barest minimum, I would suggest you familiarize yourself with SideWiki and install it on your computer so you'll at least know when/if people start using it on your website.