I read a blog post the other day that debated the acumen in placing tertiary-level interns at the helm of an organisation’s social media profile, simply because we’re often conceived of as “digital natives” and social media mavens.

There are definitely PR practitioners who are disparaging of our status as ‘digital natives,’ and who recognise that the length of your Facebook timeline or how much you tweet doesn’t necessarily lend itself to good social media management in a PR context. Yeah, I’d probably agree.

In an age where social media is such an important tool for marketing and public relations, should firms not be taking more care with the personnel behind their digital profiles?

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I have a friend in my course who just last week was telling me she’d contacted a PR professional in Sydney – a business associate of her father – and had asked about potential internship opportunities. The response she received was, to say the least, blunt and completely demeaning. This lady mounted a grand-scale attack on her lack of experience in the field and argued that personal social media literacy maketh a PR practitioner not. And the rant continued, condemning organisations for taking on young graduates under the guise that they’re properly equipped to handle a company’s social media presence because they’re digital natives, not digital immigrants. She then proceeded to demean our entire degree, asking what Professional Communication even was, and questioning it’s relevance to the PR field (safe to say that my friend is planning to send back a scathing email in response, and won’t be lending her skills to that PR firm anytime soon).

The post further reminded me of a chance meeting I had with the social media manager of Nine Network Australia (or Nine News, my memory fails me) back when I was interning with their Canberra bureau last year. The first thing that struck me was that they only had one social media manager – this seemed odd for such a large and successful media organisation, no? This person (who shall remain nameless and genderless – God forbid my ramblings cause them professional strife!) seemed to conceive of their position as very low-level in the organisation, and having little to no significance in the scheme of things. But this view hadn’t really come from this person, it had stemmed from the attitudes towards his position of his colleagues and bosses. The way the person talked about their position in terms of hierarchy was very self-deprecating. So in this sense, I think bureaucracies like Nine Network Australia still don’t see the value of a skilled social media manager, and perhaps this is why interns are so frequently put in charge of managing an organisation’s social media presence, despite perhaps not having the complete skill set to do so. Too soon are interns and recent graduates being entrusted with the responsibility of social media management, rather than occupying a position with a lower level of autonomy and a higher level of managerial monitoring.

So, what qualities should companies be looking for in social media interns? Great writing skills, a knack for innovation and creativity, the ability to communicate, enthusiasm, and dedication. Perhaps the problem isn’t that they’re chucking grads and interns behind their social media profiles, but the quality of PR education these ‘digital natives’ are ingesting. Food for thought.