Anthony Lewis: 54 Clear Warning Signs That You Work in Social Media

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

54 Clear Warning Signs That You Work in Social Media

If you’re reading this, you likely work in digital marketing. Join hundreds of your peers at the most advanced social marketing conference of the year at Social Fresh 2015.

A few years ago I came clean with the fact that… and this is hard to say… I work in social media.

I really hate when I have to deliver bad news to our readers, but the fact is, I know many of you are in danger of being diagnosed with this illness. I personally have been battling against it fairly publicly, and yet I have noticed many of you might have it even worse.

Those of you at standing desks right now might want to sit down.

Some of you, in fact almost all of you, ARE social media professionals.

Every year or so, we write about this because we know it can help so many of you as well.

Please put down the smart phone, tablet, and Nike Fuel Band. We need to confront this…

The first step is to admit there is a problem. And to help you, we’ve identified some of the early warning signs. With the help of the Social Fresh Community of course.

You might work in social media if…

You can’t explain to your parents what you do…. — Johana Pat
You complain about how awesome Twitter use to be before it got so noisy
When the Wifi is down, you make a list of things to Google later – Nicole D’Alonzo
The longest 15 minutes of your life is the time between ‘cabin doors are now closed’ and ‘cruising altitude.’ — Stacy Zapar
Anyone you meet under the age of 18 is subjected to an informal interview about what social networks they and their friends use.
You refer to your family as your followers — Sabine Liedel
You have a panic attack when you might have tweeted from the wrong account — Erin Richards-Kunkel
You refer to your new spouse as a converted lead — Kevin Vine
Your first thought when your kid says something funny is ‘that would make a great Facebook post.’ — Megan Anderegg Malone
You go to check your bank statement and instead accidentally sign into Facebook — Tara Nicole
You hate when your mom calls it The Facebook, The Twitter — Tatiana Lawrence
You have nightmares that feature Hootsuite — Carly Eiseman
Your wedding photo was a selfie.
Your family calls you a “professional facebooker”! — Brandon Williams
You can name off 20 social media sites faster than you can even begin think of any of the 7 dwarfs names — David Russell
Your dog, office plant, and future child all have their own Twitter accounts — Jason Yarborough
You’ve referred to yourself as a live-tweeter
You wake up in the middle of the night to pee but check your Facebook first — Samantha Bruno
You’ve thought about how you can legitimately buy a drone for “business purposes”
You’ve ever asked someone standing next to you to RT something — Jason Yarborough
You wake up in the morning and all you can think about is how well your a post is doing that went live yesterday — Blake McCammon
You get angry when you hear about another celebrity deleting their Twitter account
You get angry when a brand just lists a Facebook or Twitter ICON in an ad with no link or call to action whatsoever — DJ Waldow
You’ve accidentally lost an hour to a Twitter Chat
You spend more time in the Facebook Pages app on your iPhone than the Facebook app — Mike Templeton
If you’re disappointed in weddings when there is no flash mob
You’ve crowdsourced your dinner… your vacation… birthday present ideas…
You introduce yourself not with your actual name, but your Twitter handle — Nina Grenningloh Reyes
You secretly judge new people you meet by the health of their Twitter account — Vincenzo Landino
You have a great story about this sweet Klout perk you got that one time — Jason Keath
An entire conversation during the happy hour you attended was centered around ‘hashtag’ — Danielle Jones
If you lost more than 25% of your audience in the great Instagram unfollowing of 2014
You have an IFTTT recipe to help you know when your family is trying to get in touch with you
You actually say the word “hashtag” in conversations — Owen Hemsath
You understand the sentence “Gchat me your Netflix login – hashbrown #nofilter” — Nicole D’Alonzo
You get angry at… lack of followers, unfollows, no outlets, no wifi, instagram outages
You mentally live-tweet every event, including your dental work — Megan Anderegg Malone
You’ve thought about what your company’s Apple Watch social strategy might be…
“Today on twitter…” is the way you start conversations at dinner with your family — Casie Shimaskey
You have actively researched what you need to do to get your own Wikipedia page
You’d be in trouble at work for NOT having Facebook open — Elizabeth Riebe-Thomas & Jim Tobin
You secretly still know your Klout score, although you’d die before admitting that to anyone #shhh #presentcompanyexcluded
You actually don’t like being referred to as an expert/guru/ninja in your field — Vincenzo Landino
You find yourself wishing there was a “turn off notifications” button for certain people in real life
Your spouse knows more about the people you follow on Twitter than she does about the people who work in your building — Matt Hannaford
You get angry when a brand uses a QR code really poorly — Scott Stratten
You hashtag your texts and private messages — Stacy Zapar
You have a better relationship with brands on Twitter than you do with certain relatives
You discuss the lack of engagement your friends have with you and debate if they are bringing you ROI — Chris Moody
You worry about image size and ratio when taking photos with your family — Tim Hayden
You’re cool with totally random people “following” you — Cody Cornett
You’re friends or coworkers ask you to translate Tweets for them — Cassandra Laper
You choose what food to order based on what will look best on Instagram — Katie Cook
You no longer watch the news because “it was all on Twitter yesterday”
Your Turn… add your own in the comment below. =)