This job listing was first noticed by Center Networks. Best Buy, listed by Mashable as one of the 40 Best Twitter Brands, fell short in their understanding of the Twitter phenomenon.
First off, followers at any level under 2000 can be accomplished in days. 250 can happen in hours.
Second… who cares? Does someone’s number of Twitter followers help to qualify them for a Senior Manager of Emerging Media Marketing job with a major tech corporation? If they were to say that experience (number of updates), longevity (length of time on Twitter), and a high number of followers relative to the number that one is following would be a metric in preferred qualifications, that would make more sense for a job like this. Considering that I consult with owners and/or manage dozens of accounts over 10,000 followers, I know for certain that one’s skill at Twitter has very little to do with whether or not they can accumulate 250 Twitter followers.
With that said, I am interested in the position. @BestBuy, please call me.
(lol)
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This post was written by...
JD Rucker – who has written 512 posts on Soshable | Social Media Blog. JD Rucker is a social media enthusiast who resides in Orange County, California. He works simultaneously for 2 companies - TK Carsites (an Automotive Internet Marketing Firm) and Hasai (a Social Media Strategy Firm). He writes for several publications including BusinessInsider, Fast Company, Techi, Top Cultured, and ICanHasInternets. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
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So you have over 10,000 subscribers and no one comments on your blog?
You’ve just been owned by Bob Smallsy.
My understanding is that he manages accounts with more than 10,000 subscribers on behalf of someone else, so not quite a pwning. More like getting paid to Tweet.
Hey JD,
opinions vary (yes I’m quoting Swayze from Road House).
I don’t think this one job description detail sums up our entire enterprise understanding of Twitter. But you are welcome to your opinion.
Considering the crazy buzz that this job has gotten due to the Twitter qualification (last I checked over 7000 views of the job, 4-5 blog posts at least, hundreds of retweets from Jeremiah Owyang’s followers, Jason Fall’s followers, your followers, and many others followers, one could argue we do get Twitter a little bit. There’s many more examples I could share. Connecttweet, Spy.appspot, and retweetradar Twitter apps being written by a Best Buy.com employee. The @bestbuy twitter handle isn’t a PR person, but is an aggregated channel for any employee who signs up to tweet through it. Our CEO and CMO and hundreds of employees are on Twitter. Also, we just announced Twelpforce the other day, here’s a link to several news stories on what that is http://news.google.com/news?q=twelpforce&oe=utf-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wn
Just some grist for the mill, and maybe presents a more complete picture of Best Buy’s understanding of Twitter. Perhaps you’re not convinced, and that again is certainly you’re prerogative.
On the job qualification thing I would be sincerely interested to hear your and your readers suggestions for what qualifications should be used to identify someone’s social media capability in the context of a job description. I get why the Twitter follower thing seems silly. Keep in mind its only one factor, not THE factor.
I’m also blown away by the discussion that has popped up because of it.
Stay tuned to http://barryjudge.com today for more on this very topic. Barry is Best Buy’s CMO. @bestbuyCMO on twitter.
Here’s your chance to improve upon our job description for the Emerging Media role http://bit.ly/wbcRd
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