Helen Ray is one of the whip-smart, razor-tongued girl bosses behind Refinery29’s social media. Their Facebook page reaches more than four-million followers, an audience that Ray engages like it’s her job (because it is). She’s a member of R29’s massive social media team, a group of digital marketing experts who use social media as a channel to entertain and inform readers with R29’s content. (And with verticals ranging from Style to Food to Work & Money, there’s a lot to juggle.) Before landing her role at R29, the Mason alumna got her start with Her Campus in college and took her talents to Verge Magazine in London, Northern Virginia Magazine and Forever 21. Now she’s sitting down with us to breakdown the day-to-day life of a social media editor and reveal the one thing that made her stand out in her interview.
What do you do for Refinery29 as an Associate Social Media Editor?
“On a day-to-day, my role basically is to be a liaison between the writers & editors and social media. So in essence what I’m doing is I’m sorting through the articles that our writers and editors write and I’m looking at what I think has social potential; what I mean by social potential is I look at whether or not I think the article would resonate with our social audience. I try to get as many eyes on a writer’s piece as possible and see how best we can market it, package it and get it out to our audience.
“I try to get as many eyes on a writer’s piece as possible and see how best we can market it, package it and get it out to our audience.”
I also look at the packaging of our content, so I’ll look at the headline for [an article], I’ll look at the image or the ‘social opener’ as we call it, and create the ‘call-out’. I’ll swap these things out in order to create a story for Facebook. So we post those on our Refinery29 Beauty page and our Refinery29 Wellness page, then depending whether or not those perform well we’ll post them onto our main Facebook page.”
What’s your favorite part about your job?
“I would say one of the fun parts is doing a lot of different kinds of testing on the sites, so we’ll try a lot of different headlines to see what the audience will click on more, so I really like being able to see how things–like different adjectives or words or phrasing–really resonate with the audience. I love seeing what engages them and makes them want to click into an article.”
What’s the most challenging part of your job?
“One of the most challenging things is looking for new content or new stories to pitch to the writers, because that’s also part of my job. I’ll try to find stories that we can have a specific, unique R29 view on, so that’s fun but it’s probably one of the more challenging parts just because of the news cycle and the life of certain stories that aren’t evergreen.”
How exactly did you get your job at R29? Where did you intern in college?
“Right off the bat when I went to college I started writing and interning, so first I was writing for College Fashionista for George Mason and did that for about two years. Then I did a study abroad program through Mason where I interned at a magazine in London. So I worked there and still loved being a writer and going to events and covering content and fashion weeks, but I started doing Her Campus because I wanted to write about content beyond just fashion. So I became the Editor-in-Chief of Her Campus George Mason and I loved that. I noticed with Her Campus specifically that people around school would come up to me because they saw an article we wrote or something we did on campus and I think just hearing that feedback from people was something I always really loved. Knowing that we were making a small difference with HC on our campus was something that made me feel so fulfilled.
“Knowing that we were making a small difference with HC on
our campus was something that made me feel so fulfilled.”
So I did Her Campus until I graduated, but while I was doing that I took one other internship at Northern Virginia Magazine. Then, when I moved back home, I got into social media and started working at Forever21, and while I loved learning about the branded side of social media and how to market from a business and a brand perspective, my heart was still in editorial. So something nice about working in editorial is not having that loyalty to one place, you get to write about so many different products and topics. I was lucky that I had that heavy background in editorial in college, but I would say something that really helped me get my job at R29 was my passion for the brand. I had been an avid consumer of R29 since I was in college so–in addition to telling them about my experience editorially and that I brought a unique experience from the branded side–I gushed about how much I love the brand and that they’re an outlet that’s for women and by women. So I was living in LA at the time which is where I’m from, I flew out for an interview and now here I am, in New York seven months later.”
How does working in social media differ between corporations (like Forever21) and publications (like R29)?
“Working for a publication, I feel like things are more fast-paced. Every day you come in with a new slate of news and articles and everyday you have new goals or articles that you’re trying to push out to the world. Whereas working on the corporate side or for a brand like Forever 21 you’re doing social on a daily basis, but you’re more working on a longer campaigns. Forever 21 would have their ‘big fall line’ or ‘big spring spread’ that they were trying to push.”
What are your insider tips for a collegiette interested in a career in social media?
“For starters, get as much experience as you can. Intern during the summers, intern during the semesters and try to have a variety of different places that you intern. Having that variety makes you more marketable. Working for online publications or somewhere like Northern Virginia Magazine where it’s more local content or even if you want to dip your toes into the brand side and work for a fashion or beauty brand, trying different things allows you to have a really unique perspective with more skills than other people have.
I think you also need to take the time to look at yourself and understand what you’re passionate about, because you need to have the passion and the drive for it. If there’s a specific media brand you want to work for then be an avid consumer of it. Then you can say ‘well as a consumer this is what I liked to see,’ so you have that unique angle you can bring into the business.”
How can college women use social media to network?
“I think if you’re applying for social media specific roles then it’s probably recommended to have a public social media profile. Employers are going to your socials and looking at what kind of content you have. If it’s a social media role, they want to see if you have an eye for aesthetics and captions and photography, things like that.
I think all these brands that you engage with…we definitely want you to follow the writers and see what they’re up to. I don’t think it would necessarily help you get the job [to follow them] but when I was interviewing at R29 I was able to even mention that I had favorite writers and rattle off some of the writers, which made me stand out. Absolutely follow the magazine or brand on all of their social too so you can see what they’re doing, that way you can be familiar with what’s going on and even bring recommendations to the table for how they can improve.”
Follow Helen on Instagram (@helenvray)!
All images courtesy of Helen Ray.