Jobs for Social Media Ninjas!

"So many companies will just toss it over to an intern, thinking that these young people are always on social networks, so they must be good at social media," Gerber said. "It rarely works."

Average starting wage for social media jobs, according to the jobs search site Simply Hired, is about $55,000.

Academia is starting to take the field seriously too. Birmingham City University in England now offers a master's degree in social media. Beginning this fall, Northeastern University in Boston will offer a specialty in social media for master's students studying corporate communications.

"We tried to cover social media in other classes, but we realized that it's become important enough that we need something much more in-depth," said Carl Zangerl, a faculty teacher and coordinator of the Northeastern program.

But no matter how much the title is dressed up, the job still largely involves sending out messages on Facebook and Twitter.

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Facebook ‘like’ button declared illegal

Facebook’s ubiquitous ‘like’ button found on countless websites in Germany was declared in violation of the country’s strict privacy laws by a state data protection official on Friday.

“Facebook can trace every click on a website, how long I’m on it, what I’m interested in,” he said. According to Weichert, all the information was sent to the US company even if someone was not a Facebook member.

Saying this contravened both German and EU privacy laws, Weichert demanded websites in Schleswig-Holstein remove the ‘like’ button from their offerings by the end of September or face a fine of up to €50,000.

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