User guide of me
소셜미디어 회사에 다니는 회사원은 회사에 어떤 기여를 할까
본 글은 회사 내부 Learning&Development 블로그에 기고했던 것입니다.
Background
I got into the social media industry by conducting academic research in Ph.D., and one of the projects was a similar type of evaluation of user queries that I currently conduct at ( ). I honed my data analytical skills in the Master's program in Applied Business Analytics to provide valuable insights from analyzing social media data. Along with my school work, I used to provide social media consulting services to Korean brands who wished to enter North American market. This was a great opportunity for me to apply my academic knowledge to real-life cases and measure the effectiveness of my strategy. But if you ask me whether I got my Ph.D. degree, I didn't. If you want to read more about why, here is the part below: How I Joined ( )
Regarding the Company's Values
On the first day of new joiner orientation, I instinctively knew 'aim for the highest' suited me the best out of the ( ) values. I'm the type of person who constantly looks for challenges because I just love spicing things up in my life. I try to take myself to the next level at all times on top of my core work. While making sure my core work is done perfectly, I go above and beyond to satisfy my intellectual hunger. And I share new findings that I've picked up along the journey with all my colleagues so it could be a mutual benefit.
To give an example, when I confirmed with my team that a program to bridge the knowledge gap was necessary for all team members, I devoted a lot of time to creating a knowledge boost-up project in the most effective way. By expanding the horizon from the day to day work, this project led the way for colleagues to share any questions peers may also be pondering on, and show the resolve process and the findings/solution to the question. This has been a good opportunity for us to pursue the 'aim for the highest' collectively as a team.
How I Joined ( )
March 15, 2020 was the day I initially realized I would be working from home for quite a while (But not this long. I never imagined that I would still WFH even after 3 years). I was in Boston at that time, and things were pretty serious. Starbucks announced nationwide that it will be temporarily closing its stores due to the COVID lockdown as coffee is categorized as a 'non-essential item'. So I had to live off my Nescafe Instant coffee for a few months as coffee was a basic necessity for me to survive in grad school.
Attending 'Zoom University' for more than a year was a blessing in disguise. WFH environment not having to physically go to classrooms spared me a generous amount of time to think about what I genuinely enjoyed. Voluntarily quarantining in my room, I would spend hours exploring how social media and search engine algorithms work. I had to rely on third-party resources such as digital marketing/consulting firms' posts and academic papers since that type of info is highly confidential. Even my research of interest during PhD program was the quantitative side of search engines and social media. Just as a reference to how much I was obsessed with them, my research topic was 'Search engine data: Which keyword characteristics serve as good consumer response indicators?'. The level of keyword match (accurate, phrase, and long tail keyword) to the query was considered. My plan was to categorize users' click-through behaviors into 3 search stages of consumers before they make a purchase of a product. Unfortunately, I couldn't make a conclusion on this topic since I dropped out of Ph.D.
I'm only a Ph.D. dropout so my opinion doesn't represent all hardworking Ph.D. students and candidates, but I realized a few things that hindered me from staying in school. Coming up with beautifully structured prime-quality data is essential in writing an impactful research paper. It is every student's dream to be listed in top-tier journals with a high impact factor. Journals with higher impact factors are given the status of being more important and carrying more prestige in their respective fields. However, it was not easy to retrieve the most up-to-date data suitable to my research, even from data libraries that tech companies provided for academic purposes. Data in the tech industry containing sensitive information ought to be treated as highly confidential. There have already been multiple cases in the industry where unauthorized data scraping by academic researchers created privacy concerns. No matter what, the security of the platform and users’ privacy shouldn't be compromised. Facing the obstacles that limit progress in my research, that was when I decided to bail out of school.
I thought about what I could do to make a positive impact in the field that I was so happy to be in. The answer was quite simple. Start knocking on tech companies' doors to take part in, especially ( ), since it is the fastest-growing tech company in the world. I could certainly see why because I was a heavy user myself. Not only ( )'s epic growth caught my eye, but I was also informed that teams at ( ) are highly specialized and promote an atmosphere for employee growth.
As I have made my way in ( ), I feel ever greater being able to work hands-on to promote safety for everyone in the () community. What gets me extra excited is that I get to work with the smartest people around the world, and share the same business values as a team. ( ) fosters each employee's functional and educational growth via e-learning and educational sessions, so I could satisfy my thirst for knowledge too. I'm so grateful to the past self that I decided to quit school to become a ( )er.
✍Be at the Forefront of Social Media Industry News
Since we work for a social media company, it's important to know what's happening in the industry even though that specific news may not be within our core scope of work. Check out the document above to find out about my source of info and feel free to share your own source by adding in the comments:)
A lot of you would be already familiar with the global daily news message from Owl. I get mine around 5PM in my timezone, and going through the daily dose of news before I log out has become my daily routine. I believe it's very important to know what's happening in the industry that we are in, even though that specific news may not be within our core scope of work. Exposing ourselves to the latest social media/SEO/tech industry news in general would help us strengthen our ability to see things from a macroscopic point of view. Our intuition is like a muscle, it needs to be used and built up with consistency in order to develop greater insight.
Just to be clear, I'm not affiliated with any of the businesses mentioned below. These are just a list from my curated bookmark. Feel free to leave a comment if you guys have any add ons to this :) I'd love to know more!
Websites for useful resources
Techcrunch-social media news (https://search.techcrunch.com/search;_ylc=X3IDMgRncHJpZANBTVBjNTB1NFJJMnN1cWdVRzlxc2NBBG5fc3VnZwM5BHBvcwM2BHBxc3RyA3NvY2lhbARwcXN0cmwDNgRxc3RybAMxMgRxdWVyeQNzb2NpYWwlMjBtZWRpYQR0X3N0bXADMTY0Nzk0MDAxNAR1c2VfY2FzZQM-?p=social+media&fr=techcrunch-s)
Techcrunch is a news media focused on tech and startup companies. Its social media sub category has the latest news from all over the world. It's useful to keep track of their moves so that we can always be prepared.
Toward Data Science (https://towardsdatascience.com/)
This is a Medium publication sharing data science concepts, ideas, and codes. The postings share great practical insights not just from theory but from real experience.
Hackernoon (https://hackernoon.com/)
Hackernoon is a tech blog to learn about the latest technology which may be of your interest. I've been reading machine learning columns lately. Its contributing authors from all over the world are doing a good job writing informative articles. I personally think its UI is quite visually pleasing, giving off a cool hacker vibe :)
Hootsuite resources (https://www.hootsuite.com/resources)
Hootsuite is a social media management platform and it provides in-depth blog posts about global news and trends in digital marketing. For example, the Digital 2022 global overview report (https://www.hootsuite.com/resources/digital-trends) is a good recap of trends this year.
Moz blog (https://moz.com/blog)
Moz provides marketing analytics software for SEO and brands. Its blog seems to be slightly more focused on SEO these days, but you will get the idea! My core work at Bytedance is to make Tiktok's search engine smarter, so I'm digging deep into SEOs too.
Mediakix resources (https://mediakix.com/influencer-marketing-resources/)
Mediakix is one of many social media influencer marketing agencies, but this one provides actually useful tactics and statistics we could take note of internally, although it could've been better if they time stamped the articles for better reference.
SEO by the Sea (https://www.seobythesea.com/)
This blog is about patents and whitepapers from search engines as the author has a law degree. Its content is not easy to understand if you are not from a technical background, but it sure will give you the overall concept of SEO and how search engines are designed and operated.
Tiktokers with informative resources
@jengolbeck : Professor/social media expert sharing her knowledge in tech. Her golden retrievers are quite cute too.
@sineadbovell: Futurist sharing her insights on technology.
@thegerardoperez: Marketing influencer specializing in Tiktok. Could be a source to get an idea of what external individuals think of Tiktok as a marketing platform.
@themuthership: Tips on making trending Tiktok videos. Hints on how Tiktok users think of its features and trends.
@professorcasey: Information scientist sharing her opinion about tech ethics.
Instagrammers with informative resources
@mosseri: Head of Instagram. Frequently holds QnA sessions on livestream.
@tech: Delivers updates and information on all things technology.
@techinsider: Sources on the web for the latest news in the tech world.
