The Unsocial Social Media Specialist

Now if that isn’t a walking contradiction then I do not know what is. I am the definition of a keyboard warrior—I am comfortable behind a screen typing away (obviously not to the extent of trolling!) I am a digital marketing professional who specialises in Social Media and SEO.

Writing content, looking at stats, reading code. These are things that make me happy (among other things—I do actually go outside!) But there is always one thing that fills me with complete and utter dread. Networking. I know it needs to be done, and that it is essential to making connections, furthering your career, and getting new business. I just find it incredibly hard.

I have been shy. I always used to wait outside of places until someone I knew arrived so we could walk in together—I hated walking into places alone—thankfully this has kind of eased off, but engaging in small talk with people in a usually small room, to me is daunting. The fake smiles, the 100s of questions, the trading of business cards, like we are trading Poke cards; it's just overwhelming.

I’ve tried everything, from listening, to nodding, to just standing around hoping someone will venture over, but nope I just cannot fathom it. I always have these great intentions to go to them, signing up on MeetUp, getting all psyched up, and then I just go nope, not tonight, I’ll go to the next one.

My fear of going to these, is not the fact that I hate talking to people, because honestly I can talk (I feel sorry for my friends and family and those reading this—if anyone!), I just feel like I am being judged, be it on my appearance (oh she isn't professional-looking, oh she’s a bit underdressed or overdressed), or be it on my professional expertise (She has no clue what she is talking about, oh god is she sprouting stats from last year?) and so on and so forth. They probably are not even thinking that, but the anxious being in me likes to catastrophise A LOT. I can actually feel myself burning up with anxiety typing this.

So how does a social media specialist work in social media, and have to deal with clients? We end up talking REALLY fast and blazing through reports faster than you can say engagement, and we pray to the social media gods no one asks a question, as it will throw you off your perfectly rehearsed script (That is only a small amount of the time!).

Most of the time, I have skype meetings, and once a month face-to-face strategy meetings! I am working on it—like most in digital marketing, we cannot get results over night—even though most people would think that is how it works!

I have my tasks that I get on with everyday, and I work through them, creating witty, confident sounding posts that are the complete opposite to how I am in person—kind of like how this blog is sounding.

Writing content brings me joy, it is a creative outlet. Lord knows I have tried painting, drawing etc, but being a bookworm since the age of four (possibly younger), literature, words, and the creation of something beautiful via a sentence to me is joy (I also cross stitch, but that is another story!).

The point of this rambling is that while we may think that we are being judged on a daily basis (Thank you social media), most people genuinely don’t care. What is on social media is usually painstakingly posed, edited, and a well-crafted caption is added. We have to remember, that results do not happen overnight, and what we do or say or wear is not outwardly a reflection of our specialties in our careers.

Yes, anxiety defined me for a long while, but when you slowly get over the fact that most people are not waiting for you to mess up, you start to get stronger, and for me to type that means that I am slowly realising this, and I will start to work on this. Yes my anxiety monster will always lurk there, but if we address it, talk about it, and so on, we can slowly get over it.