Spent 45 minutes trying to explain my job to my uncle at Thanksgiving

I work in social media management, which my uncle Ron calls "the facebook stuff." Last Thanksgiving, he cornered me by the fridge and asked what I actually do all day. I tried to explain analytics, content calendars, and engagement rates, but he kept nodding and saying "so you post pictures for money." This went on for 45 minutes while the turkey got cold. My cousin Sarah finally rescued me by yelling that the gravy boat was empty. I still don't think he gets it, but at least my aunt liked my job enough to ask for help with her Etsy shop. Has anyone else had a relative completely miss what you do for work? How did you explain it to them?

2 comments

2 Comments

hart.mark12d ago

Start by telling him you're basically a digital storefront manager. That usually clicks better than buzzwords. The pictures part is technically true but it's like saying a chef just heats things up. You're tracking what works, figuring out timing, studying what people actually want to see. Tell him it's like being a TV producer but for a brand's social feed. If he still doesn't get it just say you get paid to keep companies from looking stupid online. That one usually lands.

samwalker12d ago

Actually the TV producer comparison isn't super accurate either, at least not for how most social media managers actually work. A TV producer controls the whole narrative from start to finish. We're more like the person adjusting the store window displays based on what sells and what doesn't. Like if I post a funny meme about Monday mornings and it totally bombs but a boring product photo with a simple caption gets shared 500 times, I have to figure out why that happened and do more of the boring stuff. It's less creative producing and more constant testing and adjusting based on cold hard numbers. The data part is what people usually don't see.