Ten years after Facebook became more than a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye, employers have changed their attitude toward social media. No longer do they fret helplessly about employees spying on former flings or tweeting inappropriate comments about their brand on the company dime. Now, companies are getting in on the social media action, developing policies to protect themselves and harnessing online networking’s power to find them the best and brightest workers.
(Photo Credit: Garrett Health/Flickr)
First, the good news for you, the employee: PayScale’s data package Social Media at Work demonstrates that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are job creators. The big three networks employ a total of 12,000 workers, with median annual salaries of $106,000 at Facebook, $115,000 at Twitter, and $111,000 at LinkedIn. Social media has also created an entire career path for social media marketers, which we discuss here.
For non-social media marketers, networks still offer plenty of opportunity to advance your career. Over 60 percent of employers surveyed say they use social networking to recruit employees — 67.9 percent of large employers and 53.8 percent of small employers. LinkedIn leads the pack, with 55.8 percent of employers, and Facebook and Twitter follow up with 29.1 percent and 15.1 percent, respectively.
Last year, 54.9 percent of employers had a social media policy, and 37.9 percent said they had a policy that explicitly forbids social media use. If you can’t stand to part with your accounts or don’t want your use of them restricted by an employer, avoid the finance and insurance industry; 74.3 percent of companies in this sector have at least some kind of social media policy, and 54.8 percent prohibit using social media altogether.
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