'Social networking experts': New job, high demand

Small businesses now have a big voice thanks to social media.

A recent study shows 27 percent of small businesses are on Facebook, 18 percent are on LinkedIn and 7 percent use Twitter. Social media use amongst small business has doubled, with 75 percent owning a page on a social networking site. Couple that with the 64 percent of Twitter users and the 51 percent of Facebook users who are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of and you have a lucrative mix for small companies, according to CNET.

The report also spotlights a new job that despite motherly council pays to spend time on social networks.

Nine percent of small businesses said a social media expert would be the most helpful new hire, making it the second most popular choice next to a bookkeeper, according to the CNET report.

The demand for the new position is exploding as more businesses are finding a need to be more social.

“On any given week, we may see hundreds of new social media-related jobs posted,” Kathy O'Reilly, director of social media relations for job recruitment site Monster, told the LA Times.

The number of postings for social media-related jobs on Monster rose 75 percent over the last year. About 155 positions are available a month, a jump from about 88 per month a year ago.

"This was the year when companies large and small began to realize the importance of social media, and there has been lots of investment in social media," Augie Ray, a former Forrester Research analyst who now handles social media for insurance group USAA, told the LA Times.

The added attention of a business’ growing spotlight with social media brings with it a greater security risk.

Out of 4,640 organizations, more than half said computer attacks grew as a result of workers using social networks, and about a quarter said the attacks rose by more than 50 percent, according to Bloomberg.

The report also highlights the inadequacies these companies have in defending themselves against cyber attacks through social networks. Researchers from the Ponemeon institute, the research firm conducting the survey, found that only 35 percent of organizations had a policy on using social media at work. Of those, 35 percent enforce them.

“A lot of organizations still didn’t have an acceptable use policy,” Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Traverse City, Michigan-based firm told Bloomberg. For those with social-media rules in place, “a policy that isn’t vigorously enforced isn’t meaningful,” he said.

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