Looking for a job in museum communications? Then brush up on your Instagram and Twitter skills. A recent advert for a social media manager at the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, DC, offers a salary ranging from $92,145 to $119,794—a testament to the essential role digital posts now play in museums.
“Social media jobs are some of the most exciting and influential non-curator jobs,” says Sree Sreenivasan, the former chief digital officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. (A spokeswoman for NMAAHC says the advertised role is “a promotion for a person currently working at the museum”, which it must post publicly for policy reasons.)
A recent ad for the new communications director post at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London specified that candidates “make best use of existing and emerging social media channels”. The estimated salary for the role is £100,000—around double that of a senior curator at the museum’s planned outpost in east London, advertised last year with a pay band of £36,546 to £54,561.
Many other museums are “still learning the value of social”, Sreenivasan says. “As a result, social media managers skew younger and cheaper than their successors down the line.” One public relations executive at a US museum put the average salary for the role at around $50,000. Last summer, the Museum of London advertised for a digital officer with a salary of around £30,000.