Increase in demand for Online Marketing and Digital Media Jobs in South Africa

Google Trends show that South Africa currently ranks 4^th highest (after Pakistan, India and Ireland) in searches for ‘Jobs in Online Marketing'.  In Africa, Kenya shows the most searches for ‘Internet Marketing', followed by South African and then Uganda with this search term peaking in January 2010 since 2004.

Most Popular Search Terms

While the terms ‘Internet Marketing', ‘Digital Marketing' and ‘Online Marketing' are often used interchangeably within the industry, companies and recruiters should pay attention to how people within this field are searching and advertising for jobs.

From around 2004 to the end of 2007, the phrase 'Internet Marketing' was most commonly used to describe this area of expertise. The term ‘Online Marketing' has featured most prominently in search queries since 2009.  ‘Digital Marketing' was the most frequently used phrase in January 2010 and has been climbing gradually since, and is still being used frequently amongst online marketers.

Search Trends in South Africa

• Search trends show that job seekers search for these jobs most frequently in January, May and July months, with Mpumulanga currently trending as the region that most frequently searches for jobs within the Internet Marketing industry.
• In South Africa, the region that first showed any significant interest in online marketing jobs in early 2007 was Kwa-Zulu Natal.
• The Eastern Cape started to feature on Google Trends from October to December 2007, where after it showed a significant drop-off until July 2008.
• During the first quarter of 2008 Gauteng and the Western Cape both started showing interest in search for jobs in the online industry.
• Until January 2010 there was not much shift in search trends until the Free State started to feature.
• A dramatic rise in searches for ‘internet marketing jobs' in the Northern Province and Mpumulanga started to come to the forefront in the first quarter of 2011.
• While Gauteng and the Western Cape seem to have an ongoing and steady interest in searches for ‘internet marketing jobs, Mpumulanga continues to rank as one of the regions with the highest search trends within this field with search queries predominantly coming from Nelspruit.
• Polokwane, Bloemfontein and Kimberly all rank very high at present, as interest continues to grow for jobs in new media from these regions.

Online Content Supply versus Demand

While search continues to rise for web content matching search trends for ‘Internet Marketing Job', ‘Online Marketing Job' and ‘Digital Marketing Job', a quick search for web pages that have been optimised to rank for these terms (by including the ‘allintitle' advanced search to find content optimised for these terms specifically in their meta data and title tags) reveals the following:

This data showing that globally and in South Africa the phrase ‘Online Marketing Job' contains the most optimised content on the web.

When removing the ‘allintitle' advanced search operator, and typing in a straightforward search query for ‘Job' versus ‘Jobs' for the same search terms, the South African web results displayed  the following:

This data indicating that there is far more competition for companies featuring ‘Online Marketing' jobs or content, as opposed to those who have included the phrase ‘Internet Marketing' in their web content. Most results in these searches came predominantly from job search engines, while some did provide useful ‘how to' content and advice for those wanting to enter the market within this industry.

Jobs on South African Job Sites

A search across major job sites in South Africa such as Jobs.co.za, CareerJunction, Pnet and Careers24 as well as the popular professional network, LinkedIn and specialist digital and marketing websites Bizcommunity and Memejobs revealed that ‘Online Marketing' (142) is the most widely used term in South Africa when advertising jobs, compared to ‘Digital Marketing' (130) and ‘Internet Marketing' (36).  Across most websites, Johannesburg features as the region with the most available jobs within online marketing.

While a general search for keywords such as ‘Online', ‘Internet' and ‘Digital' on these job sites did result in more jobs being displayed, for the purpose of this exercise we intentionally included the word ‘Marketing' in order to specifically track current available jobs for Marketing in this industry.

Professional Skills in South Africa

Professional networking site, LinkedIn, delivered 525 matches for professionals in South Africa who have specifically included the search terms ‘Online Marketing' (53%), ‘Digital Marketing' (32%) and ‘Internet Marketing' (15%) in either a current or past job title. The popular phrase ‘Online Marketing' did however render over 2,500 profiles in the results when the keyword phrase was matched from anywhere within the profiles of South African professionals.

South African Job Portal, Jobs.co.za, recently introduced Online & Digital Media as an industry on their website and currently have 160 job seekers listed in their database who are working in the Online & Digital Media sector, while they have over 450 candidates who are employed in digital and online marketing roles, predominately in the Western Cape region. Average salaries for mid to senior level positions are between R15,000 to R25,000 while more senior roles are paying around R40,000 to R60,000 per month. Entry level positions for digital marketers start at around R7,000 per month.

Tips for Job Seekers

• Include all phrases (Internet, Online and Digital Marketing Jobs) across your CV when posting it to major job sites, however where possible feature the term ‘Online Marketing' prominently in your CV profile.
• When searching for jobs on the major job sites, remember to use all search phrases (Internet, Online and Digital Marketing Jobs) in your keyword searches.
• Ensure that you have optimised your profile summary on LinkedIn to include your skills or experience using ‘online marketing' as your primary target keyword. Include both ‘Internet' and ‘Digital' across your profile summary to ensure that you are not missed for these searches.

Tips for Recruiters

• Try to include all phrases (Internet, Online and Digital Marketing Jobs) across your job ads when advertising for these skills on the Internet, however where possible feature the term ‘Online Marketing' in the heading.
• When searching on the Internet for specialists within the industry, remember to use all search phrases (Internet, Online and Digital Marketing Jobs) in your keyword searches.

The future for Marketers

Marketing roles are certainly evolving as we are more frequently seeing positions being advertised for candidates who have experience and knowledge of both traditional and digital marketing, and where they are able to integrate both from a strategic and operational perspective. Together with traditional marketing experience, marketers are now expected to have an understanding of search engine optimisation, paid search, social media and mobile marketing if they want to further develop their marketing careers, and those candidates who fail to adopt these skills will certainly find that there are far fewer opportunities for them than those who are able to apply these newly, in-demand skills.

Author: Gillian Meier, CEO of Jobs.co.za and Founder of Blue Magnet Digital Solutions

Note: Statistics and trends as at 21 January 2012.