It’s time to take social media seriously – and that means paying higher salaries

At The Drum's Predictions Breakfast, I was interested to hear how 2017 is going to be the year social takes its rightful place at high table of digital marketing. I’m normally suspicious about 'years of anything' being proclaimed, but after I saw some fantastic presentations on the use of social data and about how a complex ecosystem of tools has evolved around the discipline I had become a convert. The biggest area of growth seems to be around influencer marketing with the smart money moving from celebs to micro influencers as the centre of this world. Even organic posts which do perform well need fantastic content and more often than not, that will need funding as well. So it's becoming clear that brands need to put the social channel at the heart of their marketing. No longer can social be seen as something you can do on the cheap. Social media salaries remain below the average marketing salaries at all levels. We know brands want to invest more in social. We know that social marketing is growing as a medium as brands move away from traditional display. The Propel Digital Salary and Industry Insights Report combines internal salary data with over 1300 respondents to a survey carried out over three months in 2016.