Rachel Karten got her start in social media in a way she admits is now a punch line: as an intern.
“That’s the classic joke when brand accounts mess up online, of course,” she says. “Did an intern tweet this?”
Ms. Karten, now 30 and based in Santa Monica, Calif., started running social media for Plated, a meal-kit startup, in 2013, and persuaded the company to turn her internship into a full-time role. There were few mentors in the still-new field at the time, so she got better at her job by seeking out meetings with people behind the accounts of companies she admired, like Warby Parker and Birchbox.
After more than seven years running social media for Plated and the food magazine Bon Appétit, she felt there was enough work available that she could become an independent consultant. Last December, she also launched a newsletter for industry professionals to discuss topics like mental health.
“There are enough of us now that people don’t need to start from scratch like I did each time,” she says. And there are so many full-time jobs that she even started posting some listings on her newsletter—a far cry from her one-woman campaign to create a position for herself eight years ago.
