Social media is the most overrated skill by businesses, marketers say
Marketing Week’s 2023 Career and Salary Survey reveals the skills marketers believe their businesses overrate with social media, performance marketing and digital ranked highest.
By Molly Innes
Social media is the most overrated skill looked for by businesses of their marketers, according to Marketing Week’s 2023 Career and Salary Survey.
More than a fifth (22.9%) of the 3,000+ marketers that responded to the survey identified social media as the most overrated by businesses.
Social media was said to be overrated by 22.4% of B2B marketers, compared to 24.2% of B2C marketers. For marketers working in businesses with a mix of B2B and B2C, that figure is 22.3%.
The second most overrated marketing skill identified by marketers by businesses is performance marketing (16.1%), followed by digital marketing (15%) and advertising and marketing technology (13.7%).
Content marketing was also viewed as overrated by 13.1%, SEO by 13%, data analysis by 7.1% and user and customer experience (6.1%).
Is an ‘obsession’ with digital skills excluding talent from the workplace?
The opinions of marketers is at odds with what is seen as desirable by recruiters. According to a recent study from LinkedIn, social media is the most in-demand skill for marketers in 2023, while digital marketing is the third most in-demand.
The LinkedIn list was based on the attributes employers and recruiters have mentioned most often on LinkedIn when looking to hire in the six months to October 2022.
Social media most in-demand skill for marketers
Meanwhile, advertising and marketing technology is the second most overrated marketing skill (14.6%) according to B2B marketers, that figure is 13.6% for B2C and 12.8% for a mix of B2B and B2C.
Performance marketing is the second most overrated skill by B2C businesses (19.7%). However, for B2B companies, that figure drops to 14.1%, and is 15.1% for companies with a mix of B2C and B2B.
As part of our Anatomy of a Marketer series, which is based on data from the Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey, we take a closer look at the marketing skills that are needed, necessary and fundamental to success in the current and future environment, as well as those that aren’t.
Check out all the latest 2023 Career and Salary Survey content
