Maybe Social Media Professionals Need to Take Social Media More Seriously

I’m getting really tired of seeing so-called “social media experts” on Threads, Instagram, LinkedIn and every other platform complain about having to actually do the work they were hired to do. And I’m not talking about legitimate complaints about unreasonable clients, scope creep, terrible communication, unrealistic deadlines or someone expecting you to be available 24/7. Those are real problems. I’m talking about people complaining about the fundamental responsibilities of the job itself, as though creating content, writing captions, editing videos, scheduling posts, adapting content for different platforms and managing a client's social presence are somehow beneath them.

At some point, we need to have an honest conversation about this because I think we are partly responsible for the reason social media professionals still aren't taken as seriously as other marketing professionals. We constantly tell businesses that social media is an important part of their marketing strategy, that they need to invest in it, that they need to have someone who understands what they're doing, and that it shouldn't just be handed to the intern because “they're young and know Instagram.” Then some of the same people making those arguments spend their days publicly complaining about having to make content for their clients. It doesn't exactly help the case we're trying to make.

You don't get to skip the actual work

There seems to be an increasingly strange attitude within the industry that once you've decided you're a “strategist,” you're somehow above execution. Strategy is obviously important, but strategy without execution is just a document sitting in a Google Drive folder. Eventually, somebody has to take that strategy and turn it into actual content that gets published. Someone has to write the caption, edit the video, make the graphic, schedule the post, respond to comments, research the audience, repurpose the content, look at the analytics and figure out what needs to happen next.

None of that makes you less of a strategist. It means you're actually doing the job.

I don't particularly care whether you use Canva, Photoshop, Premiere, CapCut, a scheduling platform or a notebook and a pen to plan your content. The tool isn't the point. The point is that these are all parts of the work. Sometimes the work is creative and exciting, and sometimes it is repetitive and incredibly boring as you poor over metrics on a spreadsheet. That's true of virtually every profession. Being paid to provide a professional service doesn't mean every single task involved is going to be glamorous.

If your response to being asked to create the content you're being paid to create is essentially, “That's not what I signed up for,” then I have a fairly simple question: What exactly did you sign up for?

Not every client needs A viral post

The obsession with virality is another thing that drives me slightly insane. I see people create one piece of content that performs extremely well and then act as though they've cracked the code to social media. Suddenly, every client needs to recreate that exact piece of content, regardless of their industry, audience, brand, product or objective. If it doesn't work, the conversation becomes about how difficult the client is, how boring their industry is, or how the algorithm is apparently holding them back.

That's not marketing.

A piece of content getting a million views can be fantastic, but it doesn't automatically mean it was effective marketing. If those million views came from people who have absolutely no interest in buying the product or service, then what exactly did the business accomplish? Meanwhile, a post that reaches 5,000 highly relevant people and generates several qualified enquiries could be far more valuable to that business than a Reel that gets half a million views from an audience that will never become a customer.

Different businesses have different objectives. A restaurant might want people through the door. A hotel might want bookings. A contractor might want qualified leads. A professional service provider might need to build trust before someone ever picks up the phone. A local business might simply need to become more recognizable within its community. Those objectives require different content, different messaging and different strategies.

Viral content is not the same thing as effective marketing. Sometimes it is the result you want. Sometimes it is completely irrelevant to the actual business objective.

Social media is still marketing

This seems incredibly obvious, but I think a lot of people entering this industry have forgotten that social media is a marketing channel. It isn't an isolated little universe where the normal rules of marketing no longer apply. You still need to understand your audience, positioning, messaging, branding, awareness, customer behaviour, the buyer journey, differentiation, calls to action and conversion. You need to understand what you're trying to accomplish before you start worrying about which audio is trending this week.

You don't need a marketing degree to manage someone's social media. You don't need to know every academic marketing theory ever created. But if you're going to call yourself a social media expert, strategist or marketing professional, you should have at least a basic understanding of the principles that underpin the work you're doing. You should be able to explain why you're recommending something beyond “because everyone is doing it” or “this type of Reel is performing well right now.”

Knowing how to make a Reel doesn't make you a marketer. Knowing how to schedule a post doesn't make you a strategist. Having a personal account with a lot of followers doesn't automatically make you an expert. Those are skills, tools and experiences that can contribute to expertise, but expertise comes from understanding how everything fits together and being able to apply that knowledge to different situations.

The stereotype exists for a reason

This is probably where I'm going to annoy some people, but stereotypes don't come from absolutely nowhere. There are plenty of incredibly talented social media professionals doing serious, strategic work for businesses. There are people in this industry who understand branding, content, paid advertising, analytics, customer behaviour, creative direction, business objectives and the actual realities of running a company. They are very good at what they do, and they deserve to be taken seriously.

But there are also people who seem to have picked up a phone, figured out how to make a Reel, and decided yesterday that they are now a social media expert. Then they go online and complain about having to create content for clients, complain about editing, complain about having to make graphics, complain about having to adapt content to a client's brand, and generally make jokes about doing the exact work they are selling as a professional service.

Then those same people wonder why business owners sometimes think social media management is just “playing on your phone all day.”

Maybe we should consider that our own behaviour contributes to that perception.

You cannot constantly tell people that social media is a serious marketing function while simultaneously publicly portraying the work involved as ridiculous, pointless or beneath you. If you want businesses to understand that social media requires expertise, strategy and professional execution, then you need to demonstrate that expertise, strategy and professionalism.

Your client isn't supposed to be you

One of the other problems I see is people treating their clients' social media as though it should be an extension of their own personal content. A client isn't hiring you because they want their business to become a carbon copy of your Instagram account. They're hiring you because they want you to understand their business, their audience and their goals and then use your expertise to help them communicate effectively.

That means their content isn't always going to look like yours. Their audience might not respond to the same things your audience responds to. Their brand might not suit whatever trend you're currently obsessed with. They might need educational content when you'd rather make entertainment. They might need a straightforward product post when you'd rather produce a cinematic Reel. They might have an audience that genuinely wants information rather than another piece of trendy content.

That's where being a professional comes in. You need to understand the difference between your personal preference and what is actually appropriate for the client. Sometimes you need to push back and explain why their idea isn't going to work. Other times, you need to accept that their idea actually makes sense for their audience, even if it isn't something you would personally post.

The client isn't paying you to make content that you think is cool. They're paying you to help their business communicate and market itself effectively.

Being an expert means understanding the fundamentals

I have no problem with someone calling themselves an expert. If you've developed the experience, knowledge and results to reasonably describe yourself that way, go for it! But expertise isn't something you automatically receive because you've been using Instagram for five years or because you have a decent personal following.

Expertise is demonstrated through your understanding and your work. It's being able to explain why you made a particular recommendation. It's understanding why something worked rather than simply knowing that it worked once. It's knowing when a trend makes sense for a particular brand and when it doesn't. It's understanding that what works for a restaurant may not work for an accountant, and what works for a travel creator may not work for a manufacturer.

Most importantly, it's understanding that social media isn't about you. Your personal preferences, your favourite trends and the type of content you enjoy making should not automatically dictate what you recommend to every client. The client's business, audience and objectives should be the starting point.

That's what separates someone who knows how to use a platform from someone who understands social media marketing.

We don't need to pretend the job is glamorous

I'm not saying we need to take ourselves incredibly seriously all the time. Social media is social. Of course we can joke about clients sending “one tiny change” that somehow becomes twelve revisions. We can laugh about the ridiculous requests we've received. We can make fun of the algorithm. We can complain about spending three hours editing something that gets 47 views. That's part of being human, and frankly, some of the humour around this industry is hilarious.

But there is a difference between making jokes about the realities of the job and constantly presenting the job itself as something ridiculous.

There is nothing embarrassing about doing the work. There is nothing embarrassing about creating a carousel. There is nothing embarrassing about writing a caption. There is nothing embarrassing about editing a video. Nothing is embarrassing about spending time researching an audience or figuring out why a piece of content didn't perform. These things are part of the profession.

I actually like the work. I like strategy, but I also like execution. I like figuring out why something isn't working and then trying something different. I like taking a pile of ideas and turning them into an actual content plan. I like writing, editing, filming, researching and figuring out how to communicate something in a way that people will actually understand.

Does every part of it excite me? Absolutely not. Some of it is repetitive. Some of it is tedious. Some of it is administrative. Some of it is downright boring.

Welcome to having a job or running a business!.

If we want respect, we need to act like professionals

I think the industry would benefit from spending a little less time trying to prove how much we hate the work and a little more time demonstrating that we understand it.

If you want to call yourself a social media expert, learn the fundamentals. If you want to call yourself a strategist, understand strategy beyond the latest trend. If you want to call yourself a marketer, understand marketing. If you want businesses to see social media as an important part of their marketing, stop publicly acting like the work involved is something you do on a whim.

We should absolutely talk about bad clients, unrealistic expectations and the problems within the industry. We should talk about pricing, boundaries, scope creep, burnout and the ways businesses can better work with social media professionals. Those conversations are valuable. But there's a difference between advocating for better working conditions and complaining that your job requires you to actually do your job.

We teach people how to value our work by the way we talk about our work.

So if we're constantly making jokes about what we do, dismissing the basic responsibilities of the profession, obsessing over virality, ignoring foundational marketing principles and calling ourselves experts without demonstrating any real understanding of the subject, we're not exactly helping the industry earn the respect we're asking everyone else to give it.

There are enough genuinely talented people in this industry doing excellent work that I think social media deserves to be treated like the professional marketing discipline it has become.

But that starts with us.

Know the fundamentals. Understand the work. Do the work. Know why you're doing it. And if you're going to call yourself an expert, make sure there's actually some expertise behind the title.