Job postings on online business marketplace PeoplePerHour.com for ‘Twitter consultants’ have risen by more than 300% this year as more firms see the value of integrating social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube into marketing plans.
 
“We’re seeing increasing demand for social media experts to oversee the Twitter feeds and Facebook pages of a very wide variety of companies,” said PeoplePerHour.com founder Xenios Thrasyvoulou.
 
“It’s a profession that’s likely to continue to grow. The feedback we’re getting from the small business sector suggests that if companies aren’t paying attention to social medias, they’re missing significant marketing and sales opportunities.”
 
“We’re six to 12 months behind US companies,” observed Tony Wood, a freelance social media consultant from Norwich.
 
“In the US, around 90% of the top companies are really serious about social media and have invested in the infrastructure to make things happen.
 
“Here, it’s improving rapidly, but only around half of the FTSE 100 companies are proactively harnessing social media outlets. And when you get down to SMEs, it drops down to around a quarter.”