Social Media Analyst jobs on the rise in India 2013, shortage of good resources

A social media analyst is responsible for developing and maintaining a company’s presence on social media sites like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Flickr, etc and also has to manage the blogs of the company. According to a new eMarketer report, “Worldwide Social Network Users: 2013 Forecast and Comparative Estimates,” nearly one in four people worldwide will use social networks in 2013. The number of social network users around the world will rise from 1.47 billion in 2012 to 1.73 billion this year, an 18% increase. By 2017, the global social network audience will total 2.55 billion. With such a huge audience Businesses across the globe cannot ignore them and they need to focus on the social networking sites users to promote their products and services. Social Media Marketing has hence become an essential strategy for the large, medium and small businesses across the globe. Most of the businesses are giving the responsibility of managing their social media presence to the corporate communications teams, internal marketing communication teams and some businesses who think there social media presence is crucial for their business success recruit Social Media Marketing managers and give them complete responsibility to manage the social media presence. Some companies are also outsourcing their Social media activities to third party suppliers who can be a pure play business process outsourcing vendor or any media or creative agency. Indian BPO Vendors are aggressively offering Social media services to their clients and they are recruiting social media marketing analysts in big numbers.

Most of the companies prefer graduates with bachelor's degree in public relations, marketing or business communications and also recruit candidates with prior job experience of couple of years and a proven track record. Other essential qualifications for the job include good English language skillsin terms of reading and particularly writing as a lot of content writing in the form of writing blogs, posting ads on FB, etc. Also require good knowledge of MS Excel, Power Point, and Word and good understanding of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools and having a good knowledge of HTML/CSS, blogspot, Word Press, and website administrations will prove handy. Freshers can expect a salary in the range of Rs.20k-25 k and if you are really good at it then within a year or so you can expect remuneration in the range of Rs.100,000. Besides that an analyst has to be well versed with the latest trends in social media and must know how to connect with the targeted groups through new as well as popular social media platforms. An analyst must remain updated with the latest social media tools and as social media emerged as a key component in marketing and communications, social media analysts can hope for a senior or expert role in that profession or eventually the roles within digital marketing and can move on to other positions such as an account manager or social media manager who takes on broader strategic duties. 

Along with posting, managing and garnering new followers and like for the company pages on the various social networking sites and platforms the social media marketing analyst have to spend time on planning and strategizing future campaigns, brainstorm content, meet with other departments to ensure that their strategies are aligned, tracking campaigns and reporting according to Farhana Sidek, digital client executive at Edelman Singapore. So simply recruiting young people who are active on social media sites simply don’t work they need to understand the concepts of search engine optimization, content management without which they will not be able to deliver the desired results for the company. In the day, the analyst would follow the requests of the client and plan for upcoming posts and campaigns for the client. Besides responding to queries on social media platforms, she noted that breaking down information was an important part of the job. "While we track basic stats like followers, click-throughs, fans, comments and traffic, we also monitor conversations happening around the brand both on and off our social media platforms and carefully structure responses that are in line with the company's strategy," she added. Indian Business process outsourcing firms like Genpact, WNS, Aegis, Infosys BPO, etc. are aggressively exploiting the lucrative opportunity in social media outsourcing services wherein they manage social media for corporations whose customers are taking to the online medium to share feedback.

Worldwide Social network Users 2013- Growth declining constantly every year till 2017

According to a new eMarketer report, “Worldwide Social Network Users: 2013 Forecast and Comparative Estimates,” nearly one in four people worldwide will use social networks in 2013. The number of social network users worldwide will rise from 1.47 billion in 2012 to 1.73 billion in 2013, an 18% increase year on year (YoY) and by 2017, and the number of users globally will total 2.55 billion. Growth rates (YoY) are coming down with the growth declining by 5% in 2014 compared to 2013 and by 2% every year till 2017 which signifies maturity in the number of users in developed markets like US, UK, etc. where the population is smaller and population growth rate is also slower compared to emerging countries like India, China, Brazil, etc. Even in the other regions like Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East Africa that are presently growth drivers for social network user growth will also see fall in growth starting this year.

The number of social network users is directly linked to the telecommunication and internet penetration levels particularly in emerging countries. It also depends on literacy levels, population growth rates and relevant government spending in upgrading telecom and internet infrastructure like broadband. Key players in this segment are Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, etc. have been there for years and dominate the market in terms of number of users. Many new social networking sites have emerged in the recent years but failed to build up the numbers as big as Facebook but they are also picking up slowly. The amount of services and number of applications on the various social network sites have also increased drastically and most of the business organizations across the globe be it large, medium and small in size have significantly improved their social media presence and are spending billions of dollars on the social platforms for selling and promoting their products and services.

eMarketer has increased our 2013 forecast for total social network users worldwide by 100 million since our August 2012 forecast. This upward adjustment is based on new data that indicates higher-than-expected totals for internet users in India, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Russia and the Middle East and Africa; new data showing higher estimates for UK social network users than previously forecast; and a new breakout of social network users in the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. Accessing of the social networks is done majorly by personal computers like desktops, laptops and mobile devices like tablets and mobile phones not only smart phones but also the mid-range and low range phones. Mobile manufacturers like Samsung, Nokia, LG, etc. have also selling mobile phones at low price and mid-price levels that are preloaded with social network applications like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Businesses and Governments across the globe are also encouraging people to log into social networking sites as they are providing the necessary information related to products and services, performance and reviews, customer feedbacks and are also providing the customers to use the social network sites to complain about the poor quality of product services and actively express their dissatisfaction. Politicians are also using the social network platforms to interact with voters and citizens. There has been a significant change in the way the social networking sites are used by users as they are not only sharing their personal information about their personal life with friends, relatives and colleagues, they are also actively using to interact with business organization of whom they may or may not be customers but they are voicing their opinion sometimes critically about the businesses and governments. The recent Arab Spring where in people in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain, etc. had voiced their opinions against their respective regimes and which led to the down fall of the dictatorial regimes and blossoming of democracy. Some governments are even looking to curtail the social networking sites usage by their citizens but are failing to do so effectively. Overall the number of social network users worldwide will keep growing at a slower pace in the next five years.

There is a discussion going on in regards to the slowing down of the social network users particularly the active users, users who login every day into the social networking sites and spend considerable amount of time on these sites. This is due to the social media fatigue where in some users are simply tired of using the social networking sites extensively, got bored of it and complain that the social networking sites are not improving their services and are not offering unique applications like games and content that keep the users engage and retain them. Social media fatigue is also a growing concern for the social networking sites and they need to develop strategies to overcome them. Even the changes in the government regulations and legislations in related to data privacy, confidentiality, protection, online behavior and also related to criminal and other antisocial activities on the various social networking sites. Many laws are being passed and amended particularly in emerging countries is also a big concern. Overall the social networking sites have a unique challenge in the coming five years where in they have to make sure users remain active on their sites and new users also join the sites and retain the existing users without which they will perish as the social network sites success is directly related to number of users.