Meet Justine “Punky” Nienaber, Head of Social Media

From tweeting a lot to landing her dream job through social media, Justine gives us a sneak peek behind her career in social media.

She’s the Head of Social Media for a Johannesburg-based digital agency and she gave us a sneak peek into her day-to-day life so we could learn more about her career in advertising.

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“I love creating great content, I love the research behind what content resonates best with specific target markets and I really love the insight behind our content and how it performed,” Justine tells us. Justine works for Base2Agency, an integrated digital agency, where she is responsible for overseeing the creation, management and development of the company’s social media strategy. “I get to stalk people’s digital profiles, analyse their likes and loves for a living, and call it research”, she adds. 

How Justine got into her line of work is a story many only dream of telling. During her last year at university, Justine took to social media to tell her Twitter followers that she was looking for a job. A former employee at a digital performance marketing agency, saw her tweet and called her in for an interview. “I got the job and the rest was digital history,” Justine says.

As a Head of Social Media, Justine coordinates her company’s internal Editorial, Marketing and Public Relations teams in order to support their respective missions. The Head of Social Media needs to ensure that the company voice is consistent at all times and that a social media referral network is cultivated. It is also the responsibility of the Head of Social Media to create and deliver engaging and successful social campaigns, as well as promote a social framework through training throughout the company.

Find out everything you need to know about a career as a Digital Marketer.

During the early stages of her career, Justine tweeted a lot to everyone – an activity that she says helped her gain recognition. She offers the same advice to aspirants who fancy a career in social media. “Be active on social media, be interested and ask questions,” she advises. “I try everything. I have started a million blogs, I have four of my own Instagram accounts, I have two personal Facebook pages, I have Tumblr accounts and Snapchat accounts and I follow people from a wide variety of backgrounds so that I can see how everyone communicates on a day-to-day basis.”

“I never switch off,” she adds. “I live social, I breathe social and lucky for me it’s a natural way of life and that is probably why my career has grown so fast so quickly.”

So what is one of the best campaigns Justine has had the opportunity of working on? “Perhaps not the coolest, but the Oscar Trial was definitely the biggest and most hectic account I worked on”, Justine says. “My former employers had a lot of faith in my abilities and threw me in the deep end. I learnt to swim very fast and that defined my career.”

If you’d like to be featured in this Instagram series, send a mail to editor@careers24.com, telling us about yourself and your awesome job, and we’ll be in touch!