Companies stopped looking for SMM specialists

The market for SMM open positions has dropped drastically

On March 4 and 14, Roskomnadzor blocked access in Russia to foreign social networks Facebook (the company that owns Meta is considered an extremist organization) and Instagram (the company that owns Meta is recognized as an extremist organization) . At the recruitment company HeadHunter, socialbites.ca was told that during this time the number of open positions related to job promotion on the Internet has fallen sharply.

By March 14, 2,560 offers have been published to hire HCP specialists in the job search service. By mid-April, the number of advertisements had dropped 26% to 1906. At the same time, the number of open positions for bloggers decreased even more – by 35%, from 225 to 146 ads.

The number of online marketing jobs where any mention of Facebook fell nearly 45% from 3,847 to 2,134.

Other sites popular with Russians – Instagram and TikTok – showed negative dynamics. By mid-April, the number of job offers on these social networks decreased by 38% and 22%, respectively, from 5942 to 3704 and from 391 to 304.

Most often, applicants in the field of SMM and advertising job promotion are offered from 35 to 60 thousand rubles. The number of open positions with this income level decreased by 34% in April – from 1688 to 1114 postings. The number of job offers with a salary of 60 thousand rubles. During this time to 85 thousand, decreased by 30% – from 899 to 626. Negative dynamics were also demonstrated by vacancies with an income level of 85 thousand rubles. (-35%, from 381 to 249), 115 thousand rubles. (-19%, from 144 to 117) and from 140 thousand rubles. (-15%, from 68 to 58).

By mid-April, the number of SMM vulnerabilities decreased most markedly in heavy engineering (from 2 to 0 100%) and agriculture (-83%, from 12 to 2). Number of announcements, in the logistics and freight segments (-67%, from 33 to 11), diversified asset management (-64%, from 14 to 5), automotive (-60, from 57% to 23) ) fell. ) and housing and communal services ( -50%, 8 to 4).

The founder of the Ingate advertising holding, serial entrepreneur Nikita Androsov, in an interview with socialbites.ca, confirmed the tendency to reduce vacancies for SMM specialists.

“The number of open quotas increased by 23 percent in February. After the start of military special operations in Ukraine, it fell by 47%, as all companies took a wait-and-see position, ”explained Androsov.

“Bloggers, of course, I’m sorry”

The departure of Western social networks also affected Russian bloggers. A study by SMMplanner and procurement platform Workspace showed that the vast majority of Russians work most comfortably on Facebook (36.5% of respondents) and Instagram (88.7%). Androsov emphasized that the figures for Russian VK and Telegram are only 32.2% and 13.9% respectively.

On average, 80% of the ad budget allocated to targeted ads is spent on Facebook and Instagram. And only 10% – in VK and Odnoklassniki. “When you know the intricacies of promotion on a particular site, it’s easier to achieve the desired results,” he said.

In Russia in 2021, Revenue Meta (considered an extremist organization) (Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp) amounted to 39.8 billion rubles. Almost all of it is advertising (except Whatsapp for business), he added. Androsov noted that the volume of advertising revenue is generated by Russian companies and this will now divert budgets to other channels.

“Russian bloggers suffered the most. Instagram alone had 82,000 users with over 15,000 followers in early 2022. The income of some influencers from advertising alone, not counting the sale of their own products and various sales, amounted to about 20 million rubles. lessons. Due to the blocking of Instagram, 67% of social network users lost their income, ”said Androsov data.

According to Androsov, there were only 63 million Russian Instagram users.

“Around 44 million have lost their income and jobs since the social network was blocked. “For many, Instagram was their only source of income.”

A similar opinion was expressed by the head of the marketing agency GOadvance Pavel Ugryumov. According to him, in most cases, the self-employed trusted Instagram, which was promoted by a private specialist or by the owner himself.

“Basically, those with a new profession and bloggers have suffered. Of course they are sad. But it is important to understand that Internet marketing is not just Facebook, Instagram, contextual advertising. It is a customized and automatic interconnection of marketing tools. You can definitely switch FB and Instagram. Fish on the lack of fish and cancer, ”concluded the analyst.

Will it be an effective replacement for Russian sites?

According to Ugryumov, VK is the most suitable instead of Facebook and Instagram, which are now blocked among Russian sites.

“This social network is mainly tailored to the needs of commercial companies. Among its advantages is the ability to build an email list through Senler, a convenient service to increase the audience and support an online community where you can publish products and create a personal page.

Anastasia Maklayeva, General Manager of the VIPRO marketing agency, drew attention to the fact that VK content writers can receive a fee of 100% without commission. In addition, for users and businesses, VK has organized the ability to export content from Instagram in one click.

“The system does not work flawlessly, but makes it possible to save information in at least this format. Objectively, VK is the strongest player in the Russian market and so far the only option to replace Facebook and Instagram as a social network, ”said Maklaeva.

But Ugryumov emphasized that VK also has significant shortcomings. One of them is the risk of increasing the starting price for commercial promotion in the Russian social network.

“We are now seeing a situation where most advertisers are switching to Yandex.Direct and VK. An auction system works there – whoever pays more is shown.

Of course, the correct setting of advertising campaigns and a well-developed marketing strategy play a role, but the financial part is no less important. How not to come to a starting budget of 100 thousand rubles and more, ”said the artist.

At the same time, Maklaeva believes that the situation with “overheated price tags” for advertising promotion in VK should soon stabilize.

“A large number of businesses have switched to VK, where they are actively testing all possible forms of paid placement. This ultimately leads to overheated auctions, multiple increases in the cost of a click and impression on an ad. However, we expect prices to decline in the coming months, if not at their previous levels. This will happen due to market stability and careful allocation of budgets to the various advertising channels.”

Monopoly Risks and Disadvantages of VK

However, Ugryumov noted that even a possible decrease in the cost of advertising promotion in VK does not deny the fact that the blocking of foreign social networks can lead to the formation of a monopoly in the Russian market. With a high probability, brand promotion will be carried out by VK, and contextual advertising by Yandex.Direct.

“Blocking foreign sites resulted in less ad space. It has become 30% more expensive on average. This can lead to cutting out advertising for individual customers with small budgets. For some, this may mean leaving the market because investments in advertising are not that profitable,” explained Ugryumov.

Among the main shortcomings of VK, Androsov singled out the more complex moderation procedure for licensing issues, the lack of the ability to select the user language, and the unstable work of advertising cabinets.

“Technically, ad accounts are unstable, campaigns run for a long time, rates are increasing due to large influx of advertisers. Performance is lower, VK in the total mass of advertising campaigns does not give a comparable result with Instagram. Also, the service has a huge traffic breakdown at the meters – around 30-50%. And traffic loyalty indicators (bounce rate, time on site, viewing depth) are one and a half times worse than Facebook, ”Androsov explained.

According to him, now none of the Russian social networks, including VK, can completely replace blocked foreign social networks. The expert concluded that it is possible to compensate at best 60-70% of the loss of viewers due to the intersection of users.