How can social media get the respect it deserves?

In the fourth episode of The Drum’s weekly Social Buzz Show, Salesforce’s head of digital strategy Jeremy Waite joins The Drum’s community manager Adam Libonatti-Roche to discuss how social can get the respect it deserves.

Waite reveals how he broke into the digital industry and offers some advice for those looking to get ahead of the game, saying he thinks there’s “a confidence issue when it comes to social.”

“Most people that I come across have something amazing to say, or a really interesting viewpoint, but a lot of the time – because people are junior, or they’ve not been in the industry long enough – people don’t realise that they’ve actually got a really unique angle on stuff that’s going on” he added.

Telling community managers that they “have a voice, and a platform that previous generations have never had,” Waite pointed to wine entrepreneur turned YouTube star Gary Vaynerchuk as a prime example of someone who has achieved massive success on social by focusing on a subject he is passionate about.

“Everybody thinks that they need to reinvent or build something brand new,” commented Waite, “but the best social media people are like DJs because they’re taking all the stuff that already exists and they’re respinning it and putting a different flavour on it and they’re taking that to an audience that would have never got that before.”

Other topics up for discussion this week include the debate around whether brands should always jump on the next big thing, and what the future holds for Twitter.

The series accompanies The Drum’s weekly Social Buzz chat, which takes place every Tuesday between 7-8pm GMT and you can follow on Twitter using the hashtag #SMBuzzChat.