How Lydia George went from International Law and Diplomacy to Social Media Marketing
Lydia George is the Head of Socials and Media at Selar. She shares with us how she successfully transitioned from International Law and Diplomacy to Social Media Marketing.
My Tech Transition is a monthly ConTech series that shines a spotlight on Africans who have successfully transitioned into tech.
Written by David Onugha
Lydia George is the Head of Socials and Media at Selar. With a background in international law and diplomacy, she shares how she transitioned from law to tech, leading media efforts at Selar.
What does your role as head of socials and media at Selar cover?
As Head of Socials, my focus is on driving business and brand growth and building online presence through social media, and that is where my strategies are geared towards. But now, as Head of Media, I have to think about how we can produce content to drive brand goals. With socials, my main focus was how a piece of content relates to the specific social platform, but now with leading media, I’m looking at the individual piece of content and asking questions like, “How does this piece of content align with the brand?”, “What is it going to do for the brand?” They are very different roles, but they meet a lot since media is ultimately distributed on social platforms.
What’s a typical work week like for you?
Mondays are meeting-heavy for me. I have multiple meetings between 9 AM and 12 PM. After that, I start taking requests from the product team, content team, or other departments. We try to gather these requests into one big pile. By 3 p.m., I begin sorting through the tasks, deciding what needs to be done and who should handle it. I also have to make sure that no one on my team is overloaded with too many tasks in a week, especially for video and motion graphics, where our SOP is two to four days, or up to a week for bigger projects.
Tuesdays are when I focus on the nitty-gritty of my work, which would include creating content, planning what goes up, deciding why and where it should be posted, and reviewing posts from the social media associate.
On Wednesdays, I usually try to create content. Thursdays are for light work. I focus on admin tasks, emails, scheduling live spaces, and following up with people.
Fridays are for closing the week. I have a short meeting with the team leads where we run through the week, see what’s left, and why certain things couldn’t be completed. I like to check our team board to see what was achieved within the week and what will follow us into the next week.
That’s what a typical workweek looks like for me.
What made you pivot from International Diplomacy and Law to social media?
I started creating at a really young age; I remember writing my own magazine in Primary Six and seeing people have cool jobs on TV. I was in the press club in secondary school, and I founded the first magazine the school ever produced. I was also involved in directing plays, running the press club, and many other creative projects. My parents gave me the freedom to explore anything I wanted, which, in hindsight, was their mistake if they truly wanted me to become a lawyer.
While I was in University, I was surrounded by friends who did incredibly creative things like producing music, running businesses, and organizing events. It made me realize that I could do the same. So, I started handling social media just for fun, managing random accounts and experimenting with content creation.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I got a call from Alma Asinobi, who needed a community manager, so I started working with her. At the time, Alma was working at Cowrywise. I saw the things she’d produce and thought her job seemed really fun.
Right after university, I saw an opening for a social media manager at Selar, and I applied just 30 minutes before the deadline. I got a call from the CEO the next day, and that’s how I transitioned from international law and diplomacy to social media management.
By my second year at university, I was already disenfranchised with the whole idea of international law and diplomacy. I still enjoyed law, not necessarily as a career, but because I found it interesting. Shows like Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder fueled that interest. I also enjoyed learning about diplomacy and Nigeria’s constitution. I know things most people don’t know or bother looking into. I was a good student, but I didn’t necessarily see myself standing in a courtroom arguing cases—unless, of course, it was my own.
How were you able to navigate moving from a traditional career path like law to an unconventional one in social media?
I don’t think I navigated the transition—I just did it. I applied to Selar as a Hail Mary. My mindset was, "What’s the worst that could happen? No one is going to call me just to say no."
Since I had already been working in social media while I was in school, the learning curve for the actual job wasn’t too steep. But there was a learning curve to working at a tech company. Working in a tech company like Selar gets scary really fast. Everything boils down to the numbers, and I would get anxious to see the contribution of social media to the company in terms of actual numbers and money. So I started tracking that.
It was scary for me because I was trying to be a product marketer, but I work in social media. And how social media works is very different from how all the other parts of marketing work. Social media is a big form of brand awareness, and inasmuch as it works for lead conversion, your foremost job is to build an online presence and create awareness. So, I had to learn how to balance building an online presence and generating leads.
Another thing that made it hard was how public my role was. If I made a mistake, everyone would see it. It got overwhelming fast. My hands would literally shake before making a single post. It took a lot of self-talk and time to work through that pressure.
University didn’t prepare me for this—not really. Unless you’re doing a traditional career like medicine or engineering, school just gives you knowledge, not real experience. My university experience did prepare me for public speaking. The approach to learning made public speaking important, so while I still get nervous, I’m not afraid to speak in public. That’s the one thing I’d say stuck with me.
What would you say is the most challenging part of your role?
The most challenging part of my job is the reviews.
When I was working alone, I knew when a post was done—I’d look through it one last time, schedule it, and that was it. But now that I head a team, I have to review so many things in one week. Sometimes, I end up reviewing the same thing 50 times. You fix one issue, then another pops up. That one gets fixed, and suddenly, you spot something else.
I’m trying to become a perfectionist in this role—not in a toxic way, but in a way that ensures everything we put out is flawless. In media, you can’t afford mistakes. Once something is out, it’s hard to recall it. So I review a ton of stuff —carousels, captions, designs, motion graphics, scripts, videos, and it gets challenging sometimes.
For example, we’ve been working on one graphic for three weeks. Three whole weeks on a single design because it’s never quite right. The higher up the approval chain it goes, the more opinions come in. My direct boss might like it, but then someone higher up doesn’t. So we go back and change it.
And the favorite part of your job?
My favorite part of my job is seeing a body of work published. That’s what I really like. When we go out to shoot something, people don’t realize how much time goes into it. A 30-second video might take an entire day to film. But when it is finally done, that’s the best part.
We have an incredibly creative video guy at Selar, and when he submits his work for review, it’s almost like he pulled the exact vision from my head and brought it to life. Seeing the team’s work—whether it’s a video submission or a graphic- means a lot to me. I know how much effort went into it. So before we even publish, I take a moment to appreciate it.
Seeing the magic we’ve created before it goes live is the favourite part of my job.
What is something anyone looking to make a similar career transition should look out for?
You have to be ready to do the work. Jumping from a traditional role into a more unconventional one isn’t easy, and there’s no sugarcoating it.
And always remember—if you fail, it’s not the end of the world. You can always pivot. Your degree is yours for the rest of your life. If things ever went south for me, I’d try something else first, but worst case? I’d dust off my degree, maybe get a master’s or an extra certification, and go work in a law firm or the government. I’m not scared because, at the end of the day, everything will be fine.
I know it’s easier said than done, but really—if you want to make the switch, find a way to make it happen. You might suffer at first, but at least you’ll be happy in your suffering.
If you want to work in a startup, be ready for a fast-paced environment. Do the work, and do it excellently. One thing I like to say is that your bar for excellence can be at a particular point today, and tomorrow, because of what you know, it will move. So, be excellent at what you know today, be excellent at what you know tomorrow.
Get a therapist really early on, it’s going to help your life. Therapy is really important, and it’s been helping me navigate my new role. I wish I had known this earlier.
Also, build your personal brand. In tech, your personal brand is a currency. I’ve seen people land jobs just because they had a strong personal brand, not because they applied, but because the right people noticed them. I don’t have a massive personal brand, but even I have gotten emails from companies saying, "Hey, come work with us," just because I talked about something I did for Selar in public. So as much as you’re building the company’s brand, build yours too. Nobody can take that away from you.
And finally, find ways to be happy. One day, your company might be making 1 million. The next day? 500K. And guess who’s answering for that missing 500K? Marketing.
So take care of yourself. Go to church. Go to the mosque. Praise God. Have fun with your friends. Maintain work-life balance.
How has therapy been useful to you?
So, therapy is actually part of our company’s health benefits. It’s not compulsory, but the company covers the cost. I found this therapist on mytherapist.ng, and her main focus is helping full-time professionals navigate work. I work really closely with her, and she’s helping me navigate work-life balance, understand how my team works, and see how I can help my team be as productive as possible.
It helps to talk to somebody. Sometimes your friends are incredibly biased and will always take your side, so you’d need a third party to see things from a particular level. That’s where you realize you might have been wrong about a situation and could have handled things better.
Therapy is an incredibly important tool. Not everyone believes in it, which is understandable. For me, most of my stress comes from work and struggling to maintain a proper balance between my job and personal life. That’s why I specifically sought out a therapist who focuses on work-life balance.
At the end of the day, therapy is incredibly valuable. It is incredibly important for someone to see things from a bird's eye view and give you feedback.