Because "useful" is not a title.

December 5, 2012 10:29 AM

Marketing Filter: What’s my job title and how much cash-monies should I ask for and how do I move forward?

My working to eat data entry specialist job mutated when they hemorrhaged a client and they cut costs by handing over the 3 freelancers' work to me. I had little trouble adjusting to my new duties (after I stopped hyperventilating over the nearly getting laid off thing) but when I updated my resume, I hit two problems.

My duties are varied such that I haven’t the foggiest what to call myself, a task my boss cheerfully handed off to me. Copy Writer Plus? Social Media Marketing Coordinator With Content? Content Creation Slavvy & Social Media Sitter? And, eventually moving forward, I’m not sure where to take this. I want more money, and I want to work on some complimentary skills that will make me employable. I'm also clearly good at this, which is nice. Right now I’m working on Google analytics certification, but what else?

Here's my tasks in a month, can you tell me what I am?

Writing: 50 SEO articles (pure content-by-the-yard), 12 blog posts split between 3 clients, and 6 or so “press releases” also keyword padded, but coherent and promotional.

Writing promotional copy, website meta-descriptions, youtube video descriptions and page tags, etc…

Webwork: One or two “audits” that stack websites against their competitors and measure respective levels of social media engagement.

Social Bookmarking: Less common now that I write more, but making SEO keyword heavy social bookmarking posts on 9 websites, for example reddit and delicious.

Fiddly admin projects: Data entry into websites (often stuff I wrote), checking out a 1190 urls that were getting 404s and finding the place they need to redirect to, etc…

Low-Carving-On-Totem-Pole Tasks: punching holes in things, typing address lists, other stuff people used to ask their secretary to do back when they had them.

And

Coming up next month, calling our massive reading-the-free-newsletter potential client list to solicit for services by offering them a free audit (which I’ll probably end up doing) because I have a couple of years of phone sales/collections/survey experience.

On the side I’m trying to do the social media for a friend’s band.

As far as self training, I have a couple of hours every week to work on new skills. So what do I work on? And how do I get the best money with the talents I have/what should I put out in salary negotiations?

posted by Phalene to work & money (11 answers total)

Online marketing coordinator or manager?

If you don't already have one, you could request for a revised job description (since the layoffs / shuffle) and negotiate from there? Or do you have a review coming up?
posted by Under the Sea at 10:40 AM on December 5, 2012

I think you are the Online Marketing Manager. Or, if this is all the marketing the company does, you are the Director of Marketing. If you are the only person calling and soliciting for business, you also just became the Director of Sales.
posted by COD at 10:49 AM on December 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

First, if you can, figure out what you want your next job to be and then title yourself accordingly. It strikes me that your next job will likely be either a) higher on the ladder within the online marketing realm or b) roughly the same spot on a bigger ladder that encompasses other aspects of marketing. Ergo, give yourself a title that hews to the specific (online/social media, etc.) or general based on your desires. Personally I would lean towards the general so you can personalize future resumes by emphasizing different aspects of your constantly evolving job and training.
posted by carmicha at 10:52 AM on December 5, 2012

What kind of company do you work for? It sounds to me like you are a SEO copywriter. You can try and get an Online Marketing Manager title, but to me that implies a lot of things that aren't part of what you're doing now - SEM, display advertising, affiliate marketing, etc, etc.

edit: Compensation depends a LOT on your geographic region. The last copywriter/social media person I hired started at 50k.
posted by tealcake at 10:56 AM on December 5, 2012

Call yourself a Content Strategist if you want to get a fancy digital-agency job.
posted by Kololo at 10:58 AM on December 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

FYI, you're already doing all the stuff that content strategists do, and they are in short supply and high demand. If you live in a biggish city with medium-to-big size digital agencies, congratulate yourself on falling into that fairly lucrative career!
posted by Kololo at 10:59 AM on December 5, 2012

Don't include punching holes in your description, that would be like an IT person saying they're a "mouse replacer." Content Manager, Strategist, Social something..
posted by rhizome at 11:22 AM on December 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Just came to echo rhizome, leave off the mundane. My rule of thumb is, if a trained chimp can do it, don't put it on the resume.

I typed in your duties into the Linkedin and Glassdoor job search and came up with Social Media Manager/Web Copywriter. Or SEO Coordinator.

Then I looked at salaries for these titles.

SEO Coordinator $38k to $41k
Social Media Manager $40k to $50k
Web Copywriter $37k to $48k

Just keep doing this until you come up with a combination that works for you.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:03 PM on December 5, 2012

I would generally leave off the mundane on my resume, but I also wanted to give a sense I wasn't high up on the ranking scheme at my tiny marketing company. This is a first Real Job(TM) after putting in my time as a call centre supervisor at a marketing research firm.

The review is in the middle of January and I'm not optimistic about the prospect of much of a raise on my 25K data entry gremlin salary given how I got a 'promotion', but I want to know what I should be making. After all, if I get laid off later, I want to know what to demand of the next guys, since I'm clearly okay at this.
posted by Phalene at 12:15 PM on December 5, 2012

Doesn't matter how you got the promotion, you got it. You're doing the work, they should pay you for doing the work regardless of how you got the promotion.

I don't know where you live, but if you were in Toronto (a big fairly expensive city), at this point in your career for those responsibilities, i'd say you should be earning at least in the mid-thirties. And then in two years you should have a job in the mid forties.

You're probably not going to get that if they see you as a 'data entry gremlin', but if they see you as 'we hired him as gremlin but he turned out to be so much better than that, hope he doesn't quit' then maybe you can.
posted by Kololo at 12:56 PM on December 5, 2012

I also wanted to give a sense I wasn't high up on the ranking scheme at my tiny marketing company.

Well maybe this kind of humility is rewarded in the Northern Territories, but in my neck of the woods it's good to make yourself sound as important as they'll let you without lying. No need to specifically indicate that you are low on the totem pole, just list the most important duties you actually do on a resume -- meanwhile I'd go for Online Marketing Manager.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:04 PM on December 5, 2012 [1 favorite]