As businesses begin to open the door to new hires, specialty social media positions are leading the way.
“The digital media job market is growing like wildfire,” said Fred Dimyan, founder and partner at Quest Resource Group and YourLeap staffing services, both based in Stamford.
Dimyan and his business partner, Alan Goldberg, said they have seen more and more businesses looking for someone to manage their social media platforms.
“We are just now coming into a time of understanding of what kind of positions will really see hiring over the next five to ten years,” Dimyan said. Although many people touted green jobs as the industry that would pull companies out of the depths of the recession, it is turning out to be digital and social media jobs that are showing the most growth.
These social media jobs are made up of positions charged with developing platform pages, adding, editing and monitoring content, as well as optimizing the reach of each particular presence.
Goldberg said although social sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn have been around since the early 2000s, businesses are still figuring out how they will function for them.
“It”™s still a time to test the water,” Goldberg said. “But you can”™t ignore it any longer.”
Since July 2009, there has been a 245 percent increase in job openings that have Facebook as a keyword, according to 2011 data released by national job site SimplyHired. As of March 3, about 30,000 of its job listings nationwide used Facebook as a keyword. The site founded by Ardsley, N.Y., native Mark Zuckerberg, has more than 600 million users.
Stephanie Urban, a professional digital marketer and social media consultant in Westchester County, manages social media for large retail brands. She began a professional career in social media in 2007.
“Some companies were just beginning to integrate social media as a way to broaden their reach and get the word out about their services,” Urban said. “As the time has gone on, for businesses, the ones with the real followers, it has become about providing something more than just advertising.”
In her initial treks into the world of social media, she was met with resistance from managers and executives who were skeptical of the still young platforms”™ abilities to have tangible results for a business.
“It can still be really hard to convince people who don”™t yet understand this world that there is major ROI (return on investment) that can come from social media efforts,” Urban said. “That return can come in the form of talent recruiting, market research or a better customer perception of a brand.”
Chris Russell, founder and president of AllCountyJobs.com in Westport, which has 21 regional job posting sites from Washington, D.C. to Vermont, said understanding how individual people use social media is an important part of understanding how it will be useful for a business. Having an individual knowledgeable in the medium can be very useful, he said.
“The people who are professionals in these positions are people who are literate in how to address a social media audience,” Russell said. “They can distill a sentiment into the 140 characters that Twitter allows and know how to optimize that message”™s reach.”
He said social media shorthand and etiquette are two of the largest bars to entry to the older generation”™s movement into these positions.
“A lot of these people are early adopters,” Russell said. “Many higher-ups didn”™t grow up with anything like this; but if you want to connect with your customer these platforms will help you. Business owners are starting to understand you can do what so many companies struggle with ”“ humanizing your business.”
Dimyan doesn”™t expect to see businesses hiring entire social media departments quite yet. “That may come, but now it”™s just the hiring of a position and possibly a staff of one to help manage content. There is no doubt it is just the start.”
Dimyan said many companies are shifting from making costly updates to their webpage”™s to offering events announcements and company news on their social media platforms
“One thing driving social media growth is the metrics systems these sites have developed,” Dimyan said. “The amount of hits on a website doesn”™t tell you nearly as much as the amount of Twitter fans or how many ”˜likes”™ you have on Facebook. Many people looking for these jobs are listing their follower metrics on their resume. That”™s real valuable information.”
Other online businesses, he said, such as online coupon company Groupon, are driving the social media job growth by pairing with the platforms and enabling online commerce.
“The impact is documented, these managers and executives can no longer laugh it off,” Dimyan said. “They don”™t have the in-house knowledge to handle it, they need these young professionals just starting their careers, but already adept at the mediums.”
Dimyan said the individuals being hired to the growing number of social media-based positions are not necessarily computer-major graduates, but rather individuals who have a networking social sensibility and are literate in the platforms.
“A lot of it is about understanding the territory,” Urban said. “Negative feedback is going to come with positive, but the real talent is how as the face of that business you respond.”
Urban said social media can be a stage to offer services, but is more often a place to show the type of people behind the business and creates transparency in customer relations.
“There”™s the ability to garner feedback that could save a business and the chance for a good business person to become a thought leader,” Urban said. “Social media as we call it now, is something that has just begun and is going to keep evolving.”
