Name: Elisa Benson
Job Title and Description: Social Media Director at Cosmopolitan and Seventeen
Twitter Handle: @elisabenson
Instagram Handle: @elisabenson
Snapchat: @elisabenson
What was your first entry-level job or internship in your field and how did you get it?
EB: My first internship was like a little baby winternship when I was a senior. I mean, I had unrelated internships, but my first, like, real magazine internship was at M magazine and that was the year I was graduating over winter break. So, M is, like, one of those I always describe as having a bunch of, like, celebrity faces on the cover. I was only there for three weeks, but I just loved every minute of it. I left the internship being like “Oh my God, people do this for a job and it’s everything. I have to do this.”
What does your current job entail? Is there such a thing as a typical day?
EB: I do think one thing that’s great about my position overseeing social media for Cosmo and Seventeen is that, you know, I have a team of people that work under me that do most of the day-to-day posting for Cosmo and Seventeen—they’re the ones that are doing most of the tweeting that you see on a daily basis or when you see Cosmo and Seventeen on your Facebook feed. They’re the ones that are really doing most of that posting. My job is kind of the person that’s overseeing it, thinking a little bit more big picture. That means that there isn’t really a typical day-to-day because I tend to be almost more on, like, a special projects schedule, so—what’s the next big thing that we’re working on in Cosmo? What are we doing at Beautycon? What are we, you know, tweeting at the magazine conference that’s coming up in a few weeks? I tend to be more focused on almost what project is next, and then my day kind of gets structured around those things. That’s one thing I really love about it, is that it kind of changes all the time.
What is the best part of your job?
EB: There are so many wonderful perks about my job but I do really love that social media touches everything that Cosmo and Seventeen do as a brand. I’ve been working in the industry for ten years, and when I started out, I was a writer. My first full-time job was at Seventeen writing all of the love and relationship stories, which was really fun. But now, I like that I’m not just involved with one narrow part of the magazine. I sort of get to be involved through social media with everything that we do and everything that’s important to the brand. It’s really fun and I feel like the luckiest person alive to be working at Cosmo and Seventeen which are just iconic and amazing brands that people have read their whole lives and that I’ve read my entire life. It’s just very, very cool to spend all day sort of thinking about every exciting thing that’s going on in Cosmo and Seventeen and how we can bring that alive on social media for readers.
What is one thing you wish you knew about your industry when you first started out that you know now?
EB: I don’t really think that this is specific to the media industry, but one thing I wish I had known when I got past my first job and had just graduated is that there’s a lot of parts of sort of being an adult with a job that no one really teaches you about. For instance, no one ever really showed me how to do expenses at my job so I just never did that for, like, way too long. I think there are things, like, that when you come out of the college environment where college has this massive orientation that at some schools lasts several days. You always have that first day of any new class where your professor hands you a syllabus and kind of outlines exactly what’s going to happen over the next few months. Getting a job isn’t really like that. You kind of assume that someone will teach you everything you need to know, but I think you really have to be savvy and ask a lot of questions. I’ve had a lot of amazing bosses and editors that I was working under that taught me how to do my job, but other pieces like how to expense things and other logistical things that you don’t have to worry about until you’re an adult with a career, I think it’s important to educate yourself about those things and figure them out.
Who is one person who changed your professional life for the better?
EB: It’s hard to pick just one person because I feel really, really lucky in my career that I’ve worked with so many amazing bosses and editors. I have to say, my current boss, Amy Odell, the editor of Cosmpolitan.com, is such a brilliant, amazing person to work under. When Amy came to Cosmo, I was already here, so she sort of inherited me as an employee. She had a long history of doing amazing things as an editor at The Cut and an editor at Buzzfeed, and she just really changed my career because she taught me so much about the internet and what makes content shareable and sparkly and delicious online. I owe so much of my success at Cosmo and everything I’ve learned to working under her. I also feel really lucky because we’re friends. It’s always great when you have a boss that teaches you so much and challenges you, but you also really wanna grab a glass of wine with after work.
What is one mistake you made along the way and what did you learn from it?
EB: Oh my God, I made so many mistakes—like, literally on a daily basis. This is, like, probably not the biggest mistake I’ve ever made but something I think about. One time, I sent something out from the Cosmo account that was something that was supposed to say like “Happy Birthday, Justin Timberlake,” but I accidentally wrote Justin Bieber, which is just like a stupid mind slip. So, I deleted the tweet and sent out another one and I think I made another mistake because I put his age in the tweet that he was turning but I got that wrong, so I deleted it and tweeted again. Basically, the first time I sent out the tweet that said Bieber, within the five minutes before I noticed and deleted it, Miley Cyrus took a screengrab and tweeted it out and was like, “What’s going on over at Cosmo?!” Then, E! News, who of course covered Miley, saw the tweet, wrote about it, and it became this huge story like, “Cosmo makes embarrassing mistake on Twitter!” Thankfully I have really great bosses and editors and everyone thought it was funny and we ended up getting some attention around our account, but I was really, really embarrassed. It’s true on social media—you’re sending out, in Cosmo’s case, almost 200 social posts every day and no one is top-editing every little message you send out. You can’t really show up at work, like, hungover, not on your game because there is so much autonomy on social media and you can’t make mistakes. That was just a stupid thing and I’ve done a million stupid things like that since then but that’s one that really sticks out because it erupted and turned into something bigger.
What has been the most surreal moment of your career thus far?
EB: This was not the most surreal moment, but it’s a really fun story. I actually had lunch with Taylor Swift in the cafeteria in our building like a million years ago. I was an editor at Seventeen at the time and I don’t know if she had released her first album yet or just singles from it, but it was just the sliver in time when Taylor Swift had a country following but before she was mainstream and getting Top-40 radio plays. So, her mom and her manager came to meet with some of the editors at Seventeen and my boss brought me along because I was like the kid on staff at the time. They were like, “Oh, you should have lunch with us and this girl named Taylor because you’re like a young person and she’s young.” We had lunch in the cafeteria where I eat every day, and she had a sandwich. I was like, “I like your bag!” and she said, “Thanks! I got it at Forever 21 and added the broach myself.” We just had this lunch where we just chatted, and I was actually working on Seventeen’s prom issue so I was like, “Do you have any stories about prom?” This was many years ago, but it’s always exciting when celebrities come to the office. People are always floored when I tell them I had lunch with Taylor.
What advice would you give to a 20-something with similar aspirations?
EB: I think sort of the obvious piece of advice about really crafting your online presence and making sure your social media accounts are on point if you want to go into social media. When I hire people, I’m looking at their Twitter and Instagram. It’s not like I care that someone has a photo where they’re drinking. I’m not looking to catch someone doing something embarrassing, but it’s more where I look at someone’s Twitter feed. Are they paying attention to the news cycle? Are they kind of funny? What kind of things do they retweet? Sometimes I look at people’s Twitter handles and they haven’t tweeted since November, and it’s like, well you’re probably not going to be successful in a social media position. It’s the same thing with Instagram. I don’t care what you Instagram or who you put on your feed, but it’s sort of like do you do it regularly? Are you thoughtful about it? My team runs the Instagram for Cosmo and Seventeen so I need someone who has a bit of an eye, so those things are important. Some things on a smaller level if you’re doing a social media internship, make sure your phone is up to date in the sense that you have the latest version of Vine downloaded, the latest version of Facebook downloaded. The social networking apps change all the time and if an intern is like, “OH I can’t post this to Vine because I didn’t take the video on the Vine app,” when you’ve been able to upload videos onto Vine for two years now. That’s a boring example, but with social media, people forget that it’s important to have the latest apps. The other thing that drives me crazy about young people—not that it happens all the time or with interns, but if you’re a junior-level intern, make sure you have space on your phone. All of our phones get full all the time and it’s annoying, but your phone is a tool of your job. If I ask you to take a picture of Taylor Swift in the cafeteria and you can’t do it because you have to delete four videos, those are the kind of things that can make you look a little unprepared. I’m always really careful when I’m covering an event or something, that I always have space on my phone, have the latest apps, have a spare charger—those are just things when you’re starting out that you don’t really think about but can make you look more prepared.