Samantha Tomaszewski, social strategy leader, BuzzFeed, on career in social media audience engagement

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A question that journalism students get often asked is: what sort of journalism do you want to work in once you graduate?

Many want to stick to well-trodden paths such as local news or national television. Others might want to stray into lesser-known parts of the newsroom and focus on audiences on social media.

Yet, established media professionals often consider these roles inferior to the traditional ones and some even actively discourage the up-and-coming journalists from pursuing social audience work.

That is according to Samantha Tomaszewski who leads BuzzFeed's social strategy. A trained journalist and mentor to media students, she has been vocal about demoralising experiences of some of her mentees (see thread below), sparking a conversation - where else - on social media.

THREAD: 🚨 gonna get up on my soap box for a sec

i was on a mentoring call with a student about to graduate college and she told me that a member of a fairly popular journalism organization gave her some discouraging advice. this person told her to not go into audience work ‼

— samantha tomaszewski (@samanthajtom) December 3, 2020

In this week's podcast, Tomaszewski sends a message to journalism students who want to work in social media audience engagement. She tells us how she got her role and how it can create or supplement traditional newsroom journalism.

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