Photo Credit: Angela Cranford

So, what is it like to be a social media or community editor? What are the job responsibilities and how does one end up landing such a gig? The goal of “Four Questions With …” is to answer some of these questions and to give insight into what is a new and constantly evolving field.

This month, we talked to Brian Ries, the social media editor at Newsweek & The Daily Beast. Unlike some other social media editors, Ries didn’t start out in journalism. He started his current job in August 2010 after working at advertising and marketing companies with a heavy social bent. He began writing for Newsweek The Daily Beast while it was one of his clients. (It merged with Newsweek later.)

Ries further caught the editors’ attention when, in July 2010, he reported a Facebook post by Sarah Palin on the Ground Zero mosque as hate speech. His resulting Tumblr post went viral and Facebook even took down Palin’s post. He ended up writing an article about it for the site.

Here are his thoughts on what skills a social media editor needs and how you can make your mark in a newsroom with an already established social media strategy. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“At Tumblr, there’s a recognition that Tumblr is better when you get better stuff on it,” Mark Coatney, Tumblr’s media evangelist, told Josh Sternberg in an interview.

It’s a difficult sell, as not much direct traffic is sent to publishers directly from Tumblr. But Newsweek senior writer Jessica Bennett told Sternberg that it’s a way “to connect with an audience outside the usual network of Newsweek/Daily Beast reader.” continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.