By Abby Lombardi on June 27, 2012 in Advertising/Marketing, Occupations, Public Relations.

Hiring demand for social media skilled professionals is skyrocketing. For many companies, social networking sites are a way to communicate, connect, and share information with customers and the general public. It's not too surprising that we most often see this requirement for PR, Marketing, Advertising, Sales, HR, and IT professionals. But, we wanted to take a closer look at what this really means: what skills do you really need to have to get a job in social media? (We don't mean just being able to post on Facebook and Twitter.) If you are recruiting for social media savvy professionals, think about how your job ads are being written. Are you including specific tools, technologies, and skills that potential candidates need to have experience with?

First, we'll look at the types of jobs that commonly require social media skills. Public Relations is the most common field to require social media skills, with 9,500 online job ads in May (an 84% year-over-year increase in demand.) Marketing was the occupation with the second highest demand, with 8,000 (up 29% from May 2011) and Web Developers saw the third highest volume with 3,900 ads (at a 26% growth from last year.) Other fields with high demand were Executive Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Advertising Sales Agents, Sales Representatives, Graphic Designers, and Recruiters. The unique job titles that are most commonly used in job listings with social media requirements are:

1. Marketing Manager
2. Editor
3. Marketing Director
4. Marketing Coordinator
5. Account Executive
6. Recruiter
7. Marketing Specialist
8. Web Developer
9. Communications Manager
10. Marketing Communications Manager

Below are the 10 tools and technologies that are most commonly included in job requirements within online job ads. In addition to simply knowing how to use social media sites, potential candidates need to know how use them to grow a business, promote products, and drive traffic to company websites. Other tools – like graphic design and web design/development – are also highly demanded.

1. Microsoft Office
2. Microsoft PowerPoint
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
4. Website development
5. Project management
6. Adobe Photoshop
7. Social media marketing
8. Digital marketing
9. Product development/management
10. Business development

If you are looking for a job in social media, it may be useful to know that the 3 certifications most commonly required in job ads are Web Services certifications, Google Adwords certification, and Business Process Management programming languages certifications.

Try our free online Hiring Scale to see how hard-to-recruit social media jobs are likely to be in your city! We'll show you who is hiring in your area, average salary range data, and more!