While 2011 was the year for recovery from recession for the industry, year 2012 saw the birth of new types of jobs never heard of before. If Arab Spring, Global Economic meltdown, Eurozone Crisis, Occupy movement, Anti Terrorism, donned the headlines in 2011, then one of the striking similarity in all of these roles is perhaps the deepening influence of Social media. With the filing of Facebook IPO last week , FB crossing 800 millions users , twitter crossing 100 million active users, Google Plus crossing 50 millions (within few weeks of launching), the message is loud and clear , Social Media is here to stay as a part of mainstream in Industry. Today there is a huge race among organizations to stay ahead of their competitors; the result is that we get more and more services in Social Media. Today we see hospitals engaging with patients and customers to understand more of their problems and fine tune their processes , we see automobile manufacturer discussing with their customers even before the product is designed, also we see in third world countries social media is extensively used to eliminate the world poverty problem , $67 millions were donated to support the Kenyan drought victims just by usage of social media by one journalist Julie Gichuru. While there are numerous examples, each grabbing our attention, it is important to know the impact this has created in the job market. Today Social Media is dominating the job market, there are new roles being created every day. GSG Team have listed few of the more popular ones as below.
Fundamental skills needed for any of these jobs:
Excellent written and verbal communication, Strong analytical, organizational, time-management, and problem-solving skills.
Apart from the basic requirements, the following are the other Special requirements for the specific job :
1. SEO Social Marketing Specialist – This role focuses on coming up with a SEO/SEM strategy, increasing visibility in Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook and other social media sites, On page and offsite optimization, coming up with Viral content strategy, Keyword research/analysis, Link building (campaign driven / manual outreach), Social reporting and analysis, Agency Management, Landing page and new page recommendation strategy, Understanding the social Media Channels , SEO content strategy . Understanding of online analytics metrics and related statistical concepts, Experience with web analytics platforms such as Coremetrics, Omniture and Google Analytics as well as Salesforce.com, Experience with Google Webmaster tools, SEO technologies and reporting.
2. Manager of Social Marketing - The Manager of Social Marketing will help define and manage the strategic direction for utilizing social media channels to accomplish awareness, thought leadership and demand generation marketing objectives of an organization, The ideal candidate will be a marketer by trade, a social enthusiast by habit and a leader that thinks progressively, tests new ideas and has a record of driving to objective results. Development and enhancement of Organization’s presence on key social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn), Develop and oversee social media campaigns including sponsored conversations, ads and organic influencer outreach
3. Senior Web Analyst – to support the analytic needs of the business by analyzing web traffic using click stream tools such as Omniture, Google Analytics, Coremetrics, LivePerson, SalesForce, Eyeblaster/Mediamind (ad server) and providing insightful recommendations , Analyze visitor behavior from a variety of traffic sources and helps to optimize the site to harvest new business opportunities, Manages the companies PPC strategy, coordination with various search agency and optimization of keywords, ads, categories etc., Develop excel based analytics models to measure the attribution of social marketing campaigns, Creating holistic dashboards for senior management.
4. Data Scientist – to help identify opportunities using advanced analytics and work with the necessary teams (business, Enterprise Data Warehouse and Software Engineers) to implement the full analytical solution, Perform data mining and exploratory analysis to identify opportunities ,Present analysis to business sponsors via data visualizations, white papers, power point presentations, etc , Develop predictive models for operational use , Select tool generated algorithms for expeditious solutions or, when necessary, develop custom algorithms via necessary means. To demonstrate working knowledge of statistical tools such as SAS, SPSS, etc. Strong SQL skills , Expert knowledge and ability for mining structured and unstructured data, Experience with leveraging technologies to allow for efficient data processing via distributed computing and data storage .
5. Traffic Manager - to act in an advisory role for sales regarding inventory and forecasting campaign delivery and using the available tools to achieve so, Advising sales on product functionality and helping with unusual customer requests for the use of company specific Ad Formats, Acting as controller to make sure all corporate Ad guidelines and procedures are followed. Daily traffic and management of campaigns to ensure they run and deliver a 100% of the time in a consistent way. Approving creative assets and uploading them into the Ad-System. Report back to sales representatives and clients on performance per campaign and work proactively with both to optimize the delivery and results. Making sure that products running in our service and internal systems work as expected. Experience in Traffic Management is a plus. E.g. previous contact and knowledge of work-flow and tags with different vendors. (Mediamind, Doubleclick, Flashtalking).
6. Content and Label Analyst – The key skill which are being looking for is intellectual curiosity and the ability to understand and solve not always well-defined problems and come up with relevant answers to guide the companies business decisions. However this needs to be combined with a passion for numbers, statistics as well as strong business and financial acumen. To be able to work with a very large datasets and solve the problems, programming skills is a must. Experience with modeling in Excel, have worked with large data sets before, the larger, the better. Experience with Hadoop and MapReduce is definitely something which is value.
7. User growth, conversion and retention analyst – The ideal candidate should be experienced from working with acquisition, conversion- and retention-analysis at a consumer-oriented company in the digital space. The key skill which is being looking for is intellectual curiosity and the ability to understand and solve not always well-defined problems and come up with relevant answers to guide the business decisions. However this needs to be combined with a passion for numbers, statistics as well as strong business and financial acumen. The incumbent should be able to work with very large datasets and solve the problems, programming skills is a must and also be experienced with modeling in Excel.
8. TV Creative Partnerships Analyst – The ideal candidate needs a deep experience in TV production or programming, knowledge in TV marketing a plus, Knowledge of how TV is made, how it’s marketed, and who’s watching, Knowledge of all about SOTs, TRTs and EPGs—this is your world and your language. Practical, intuitive understanding of Twitter as a platform for engagement is needed. You’ve live-tweeted a TV show and you know what makes a good hashtag. You’re fascinated by the warp and woof of conversation on Twitter, and you can explain why one official show account succeeds while another doesn’t. Drive, deepen and manage Twitter’s numerous creative relationships within TV, from programming executives (cable and broadcast) to producers to audience engagement teams to leading production companies, Identify and execute scalable new integration opportunities; act as creative consultant to partners; ensure that TV networks use Twitter best practices and abide by Twitter guidelines; Ensure TV shows and talent are pursuing tweeting best practices, Support TV networks partners with data, reporting and best practices, Produce large-scale, innovative TV integrations––working on-the-ground with the partner team––that move the entire industry forward, Coordinate relationships between TV networks and Twitter’s third-party application ecosystem, Provide guidance to third-party ecosystem products and offerings, Generate case studies, data-driven analyses and document best practices, Coordinate with the media business development team on joint efforts, key deals and partner communications.
9. UI Designer - to translate requirements into concepts and elegant user experience design, Create interaction models, user task flows, screen designs, and UI details that promote ease of use and optimize the user experience , Collaborate with other designers where overlap between product areas and features naturally occur, Partner with Design Research to inform and improve design recommendations, Develop and maintain design wireframes, mockups, and specifications, Visualize complex sets of data in ways that are easy to comprehend, Extensive experience developing consumer and/or commercial web application interfaces, Proven track record and a passion for designing compelling, user experiences, Solid intuition of best practices and tools used in user-centered interaction design, Strong visual design skills, including an eye for good typography, composition, and use of color, Fluid ability to design in Photoshop, OmniGraffle, and Illustrator, Experience in creating various prototype methods and knowledge of best practices, Ability to prototype your work in HTML/CSS/JS, Ability to multi-task, prioritize projects, and communicate progress and expected milestones, Active Twitter user Desired , Experience in online game or social/mobile app design, Prior experience designing and building applications using APIs.
10. PHP Games Developer – 2+ years of experience in developing object-orientated web apps using PHP , An understanding of the techniques used for building high performance, scalable, maintainable software, Familiarity with good development practices including source control, testing & automation, passion. It could be able the potential of online gaming or web development in general. There is a demand for someone who genuinely cares about the quality of the work they produce. The other requirements also include knowledgeable in Building backend game APIs & frameworks, Building front-end, client side web applications in HTML5 / Javascript, etc; optimizing applications for extremely high volumes of traffic; actively suggest, design and develop new systems to accelerate companies dev process , Constantly exploring and learning new technologies. Knowledge in Android and iPhone Apps development is an added advantage.
In conclusion, it can be said that the influence of Social Media is undisputed, interestingly, each of the experts in the roles above are capable of setting up their own startups and perhaps become the next Facebook. There are no huge entry criteria for these kinds of jobs, rather the key criteria’s are ability to hard work and creative thinking. Over the next coming weeks GSG team will endeavour to provide a sneak peak to our readers about the various job roles and how one can setup a career in Social Media.
Quotes to Quote: Social Media Trends in 2012
- “Social commerce will happen. People will start buying real products via social media channels; it will start to become standardised behaviour.” – Jim Dowling, managing partner at Cake
- “Following Moshi Monsters in 2011, social games and worlds for children will continue to grow in 2012, with a greater focus on narrative.” – Matthew Warneford, CTO of Dubit
- “2012 will be the year that business people start to embrace online content, conversation and professional networking as vital parts of the B2B marketplace.” - Kieron Hannon, head of enterprise consulting at eSocial Media
- “2012 will be the year of the Total Digital ROI model, where social realises its true value.” – Paul Mallett, managing partner at Brass
- “A trend we see is a more comprehensive use of data inside Facebook to drive direction for content development along with better (more targeted) advertising campaigns.” – Jason Cormier, co-founder of Room 214
- “2012 will be the year of the consumer. Brands need to use social platforms to listen to their customers and provide a personalised experience. No matter how you use it, the integration of social with local and mobile (So.Lo.Mo) will be key to engaging consumers “wherever and however they choose to communicate with you.” – Peter Gandy, CCO of Rockpool – - Peter Gandy, CCO of Rockpool
Further Reading: Social Media Salary Guide in US
(Source : Rackspace Hostings, Spotify, HeyCrowd and other Social media organizations .)
Compiled by,
Editor GSG
Social Media Career trends in 2012,
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