When most of us use social media, we're goofing off.
But for a lucky subset of America, being on Facebook, X and the rest . . . is part of the job! Which begs the question: What exactly do you need to master, if you want a corporation or nonprofit to hire you as a social media wizard?
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The right way to find out is to cull through mountains of job ads, taking note of the exact skills being sought. That's what Zippia, a career-resources site, has done. The result: a fascinating new list of the 15 social-media skills or competencies that sit at the top of employers' lists.
The most in-demand skill: knowing your way around Facebook Insights. More than $20 billion a year is spent on Facebook advertising -- which creates plenty of work for people who help run such initiatives. If "targeting," "optimization" and "cost-per-click" intrigue you, that's a good sign.
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Bear in mind: We've rapidly moved past the days when collecting a lot of "likes" or followers was enough to convince your bosses that a social-media presence on Facebook was a success. The Facebook dashboard for creating and tracking social-media campaigns is as intricate as a church organ. Success means being able to work it carefully -- and boldly.
The second most-demanded skills relate to Twitter, which can be a lot more turbulent than the orderly world of Facebook advertising. Some companies achieve winning results with offbeat Twitter campaigns. What's universal, though, is a desire to monitor Twitter for signs of customer indignation ... and to have crisis-minded specialists on hand who can deal with unexpected disruption.
Rounding out the list of the five most in-demand skills: Instagram, online presence and company website -- all of which are shown in blue in the graphic above. After that, the five skills in green, which call for expertise in platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumbler. Beyond that, the skills in in orange, which related more to traditional marketing and public-relations duties, such as customer service, content strategy and press releases.
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Do employers across the United States all want the same basic skills? Intriguingly, the answer is no. Zippia's content marketing editor, David Luther, observes that "social media managers who live in the same region tend to list similar skills, though they differ from those who live in other regions. You can almost predict what part of the country a resume comes from."
Zippia's data team split job ads into three regions: East Coast (led by the New York City region), Heartland (led by Chicago) and West Coast (led by Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. "Facebook Insights and Twitter are the top two skills across the board," Luther said, "but it seems like the heartland prefers to use social as a functional part of the (sales) funnel, the West Coast values social media for its own sake, and the East Coast is all about analytics."
Guest Authored By George Anders. George writes about innovation, careers and unforgettable personality's. One of his Forbes Magazine cover stories has turned into a new book: "You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power Of A Useless Liberal Arts Education." Learn more at GeorgeAndersBooks. Follow George on Twitter.
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Today's solopreneurs are living and dying by their social presence.
By sticking to this checklist, you can save yourself from scrambling for a social strategy and focus on what really matters:
Growing your business..
Authored by:Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends. My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)
