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Social media jobs to become obsolete within 10 years – report

Thanks to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and other networks, almost every major brand or corporation has a staff member or department dedicated to social media. The task for these employees is simple: to market the company’s message or products through social media channels and increase its influence on consumers.

by WAN-IFRA Staff executivenews@wan-ifra.org | November 28, 2013

The more influence a company has on its consumers, the more revenue is generated. Through 140 characters or more, the employees in these social media departments can potentially have a huge affect on their company’s bottom line.

However, these types of positions, like many in an ever-evolving workplace, may be extinct within 10 years. According to a recent Workopolis study, social media-based jobs could go the way of more traditional jobs such as taxi driver and retail store clerk and become obsolete. Workopolis says that with today’s generation already immersed in social media at such a young age, proficiency in the field will be expected by employers, not something that makes a prospect stand out.

If a teenager creates a Facebook account at age 13 (the minimum age, according to the site’s own rules), by the time they graduate from high school, they will have had five years of experience in social media. If they attend university or college, that number will have jumped to at least eight years. This means that the next generation of workers will already have had significant time honing their skills on Facebook and other social networks, often on a daily basis.

The previous generation of journalists, the ones who did not grow up with social media, have had to hone their skills in the changing workplace. Social media strategist Woody Lewis compiled a list of 10 ways newspapers are harnessing the power of social media to save the industry. Among the reasons included are the tailoring of headlines for media like Twitter, and the creation of online events.

The power of these networks is enormous, with many stories having been broken via social media, including the Egyptian uprising and the killing of Osama Bin Laden. However, the drawbacks to having these networks is that inaccuracy is often rampant. Over half of social media users have reported finding out about a news story, only to have discovered later that the information was not accurate.

With social media oriented-jobs expected to dwindle within a few years, the next generation of employees will take these platforms to the next level.

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