Happiness and hardships in social
Social marketing is a tough job, but the majority of social pros actually love what they do—and you can too. Maximize your own job satisfaction by understanding what makes your peers happy.
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Find your happiness: 5 ingredients for social media marketing bliss
Social media marketers are overworked, overwhelmed, and underappreciated.
They juggle too many different tasks, work long hours, and feel misunderstood by the people they report to. Many of the social pros we surveyed also told us that they don’t have enough time or budget to do their best work and feel they don’t get paid what they’re worth.
Top 5 hardships for social media managers
66% have too many responsibilities
2 in 3 work 40 hours or more per week
56% say their bosses don’t understand social media
About half don’t have the time or budget to do their jobs well
Nearly half believe they’re not fairly compensated
But social marketers still love their jobs—more than three-quarters (77%) of them report being happy working in social media.
So what makes a career in social so great that even the downsides don’t sabotage job satisfaction? Let’s start by looking at the happiest in the biz.
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Recipe for Happiness in Social
Do social marketing full-time
Social marketers who spend 90%+ of their day on (or make 90%+ of their income from) social media are happy in their jobs.
Work for a large organization
83% of social marketers who work for companies with 1,000 employees or more are happy in their jobs.
Sit on a larger social media team
Those who work on social teams of 4 or more people are happier (83%) than those who work on teams of 3 or less (77%).
Work in the office full-time
Social marketers who work in the office 5 days a week are happier (81%) than those who work remotely all or some of the time.
Feel they get paid fairly
Social marketers who strongly believe they’re paid fairly are significantly happier than the average social pro.
Sample: Social marketers (n=3,842)
Source: Social Media Management Career Survey 2023, March/April 2023
Note: “Full time” refers to salaried social marketers who spend 90-100% of their day working on social media or non-salaried social marketers who earn 90-100% of their income from social media.
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Achieve balance at home—and happiness in the office?
It’s rare to find a social media manager who can honestly say their work never seeps into their personal life.
Allison Wong, former social media specialist at natural wellness company Saje, admits that it can feel like you’re always-on.
“You’re always trying to look for the next trend,” says Wong. “It can be very overwhelming just being on your phone all the time.”
Despite that, two-thirds of social marketers are satisfied with their work/life balance. But there’s a noticeable difference in satisfaction levels when it comes to work location.
Work/life balance is better when you WFH
Sample: In-house and agency social marketers who fall into each category (n=769-1,458)
Source: Social Media Management Career Survey 2023, March/April 2023
Remote full-timers are actually more satisfied with work/life balance than those who always work on premises.
It could be because office-only people are much more likely to work overtime. Our data shows that working longer hours negatively impacts work/life balance, particularly for those who clock upwards of 45 hours each week.
But work/life balance isn’t the same thing as job satisfaction. And the social pros who show up at the office every day are actually happier in their jobs than their remote and hybrid counterparts (even though they’re the least satisfied with work/life balance).
Social marketers find happiness at the office
Sample: In-house and agency social marketers who fall into each category (n=769-1,458)
Source: Social Media Management Career Survey 2023, March/April 2023
Our data suggests that those who love their jobs are more willing to sacrifice work/life balance, and those who prioritize work/life balance are more willing to sacrifice job satisfaction.
The top takeaway here: Figure out what’s most important to you—job satisfaction or work/life balance. And if your company lets you choose where you work, pick the location that allows you to achieve it. Base your decision on your own lifestyle and needs as a social marketer—not what you think your employer would prefer. Ultimately, that choice could be the one that determines how happy you are in your role and in your career.
Feel more fulfilled in your career
Are you happier than your marketing peers? Do your company benefits stack up? Find out the keys to a fulfilling career in the complete 2023 Social Media Career Report.
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Social media marketing is so fun that (maybe) nothing else matters
We asked social marketers what they love most about their jobs and they were unanimous in their answers—it’s fun.
“The creativity that this job involves is the thing that really keeps me in it,” says Sophie Vershbow, head of social marketing at event management and ticketing platform Eventbrite. “I’ll jot down the silliest TikTok idea you’ve ever seen, and it’ll end up being our top post of the month.”
The creativity that this job involves is the thing that really keeps me in it.But social media marketing isn’t a contender on any lists of the highest-paying professions (though it pains us to point that out). Among our in-house and agency survey respondents, US$67,585 is the average salary. So there must be something else that draws people to this career. Could fun be it?
A 2023 study by Marketing Week might give us a clue. Even though “funness” isn’t included on their list of most important job characteristics, the data shows that having a good working environment is more valuable to marketers than anything else—even beating out fair financial rewards. And while a “good working environment” doesn’t have to be a fun place to work, we’d bet most of them see their fair share of good times in a typical workday.
We can’t say for sure that there’s a correlation between job satisfaction in social marketing and how much fun it is to work in the field. But we can say that if you’re not having fun as a social media manager, you’re either not in the right career or you’re not working for the right people.
So let that simmer for a bit and make moves—or don’t—accordingly.
Discover more secrets to happiness in social media