Experience, Industry, and Company Size Drive Social Media Managers’ Salaries, New Survey Finds

Earning money for a livelihood has been a primary staple for every individual in this century. The path to earning a good living has many forms, such as taking the conventional route of getting formally educated and doing a job or starting a business. However, since the late 2010s, the trend has now diverted towards more ways than ever imagined, and one of those ways is through social media management.

In this blog, we will delve deep into how much social media managers earn. The statistics are taken from a survey conducted in September, which received 2,280 responses from 350 different cities and over 35 countries.

But first, before getting into the earnings, it is essential to share the respondents' background for deeper clarification since social media influencing management depends on several social factors.

Median Salaries Relation to Working Experience

Being experienced in social media management significantly affects how much a person will earn, as there is a direct proportionality between the experience years you have under your belt and the amount of money you make.

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For starters, with 2 years or less experience, you’ll like to earn an average of $61,660.34 based on responses. With three to four years of experience, the average salary will likely be $72,762.10. With an intermediate experience of 5 to 9 years, the average salary is likely to be around $92,424. The highly advanced social media manager with experience of 12+ years earns the most, with an average of $145,041.31, while those having 10 to 12 years of experience earn $117,453.37.

The median salary for social media mangers are $80,000 with a benchmark ranging from $52,500 to $101,400.

For different employment types have no major difference in the median salary between them as freelancers earn $83,704.40, working through an agency get a median pay rate of $85,000 and in-house employees make $81,000. Although, there isn’t any difference in the salary of employment variation but they working style and the format are highly different.

With working from home being the most popular choice since the COVID-19 era, 71% of the respondents belonged to this category.

Median Salary Per Industries

The highest-paying industry for social media management is the finance industry, with a median salary of $119,111. Then, in second place comes the tech industry, which has a median salary of $108,000. Following that, in third place is the entertainment industry, with a median salary of $99,041. Fourth place goes to the fashion industry, with a median income of $98,000. Fifth is taken by beauty and self-care as its social media managers earn $95,000.

Industries like freelancing pay a median salary of $89,770; similarly, for the video games industry, it is $88,500.

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The least-paying industries with median salaries are mostly not-for-profit and sports-related companies. In contrast, the highest pay recorded in the survey was $500,00 for tech coming working in-house.

Company Size and Median Salary

It may be surprising to many readers about the connection between company size and the median salary. As it turns out, there is a deep connection between the number of people who work for a company and the salary they get.

Companies with over 1,000 employees have the highest salaries at around $102,000. For companies with 500 to 1,000 employees, the median salary is $90,000. Similarly, small companies with 50 to 100 workers earn around $75,000. Newly started with low employees, around 1 to 10 people, have the lowest median salary of $60,320. However, self-employed people earn a salary of $87,213.

Salary Negotiation and Layoffs

Regarding negotiation, the average starting salary of the people who don’t negotiate is $86,307, and those who negotiate are $100,950. Furthermore, 51.3% of social media managers negotiated for an increase in their salaries; out of those 51.3%, 76.4% were successful. Additionally, the companies with more employees, such as more than 1,000 workers, have the highest layoff rate of 35%. In contrast, those companies with less than ten employees have a layoff rate of only 2%.

Study/Charts courtesy of: Link in Bio / Rachel Karten 

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by Ahmed Naeem via Digital Information World

Meta Offers EU Users Ad Consent Choice Amid Rising Privacy Scrutiny

Tech giant Meta is under a lot of legal pressure from the EU after it rolled out a clause that spoke about ad tracking choices. The company gave users the chance to pay or consent to ad tracking.

For now, it’s currently offering regional users of various social networks such as Facebook and Instagram the chance to change how its ad business works. There is little wonder why failure of compliance in this regard could lead to fines going up to 10% of the worldwide yearly turnover.

The company’s latest attempt to comply with EU laws involves offering less personalized ads. During the year’s start, we saw the EU regulations get stricter. Meta spoke about a new subscription fee to avoid ads and being tracked. Meanwhile, those who did not pay would be shown ads that targeted them. For now, the company is making the most of cross-service profiling.

Meta is now not so creepy about the matter but that will only be determined after seeing the final decision ruled out by the DMA probe. Now the question is what does the term less personalized ads mean.

It has to do with targeting users which includes age, gender, location, and engagement. Now if that will be enough to make regulators in the region happy or not, time will tell. For now, the tech giant faces massive privacy challenges for ad tracking.

The core issue that it’s facing has to do with getting users’ consent for sharing their personal information. Both its apps Instagram and Facebook require consent for professional service tracking and micro-targeting.

• Also read: Did You Just Agree to Be Tracked? Apps Secretly Fuel Government Surveillance!

Meta has yet to ask anyone for permission for this kind of activity. All it did was put out a binary choice of accepting to consent or paying a fee which left people very little room for choice.

We must mention that the investigation first kicked in March and then in July. It revealed some preliminary findings about the model which doesn’t comply with rules. As pressure increases on the tech giant, Meta is trying to reconfigure the ad business in a manner that meets regulators’ needs.

It also refused to accept that personalized ads were invasive and instead explained how they were the best option for both users and their businesses.

Image: DIW-AIgen

Read next: Google is Going to Delete Inactive Gmail and Photos Accounts which will Include all Your Data
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google is Going to Delete Inactive Gmail and Photos Accounts which will Include all Your Data

Google has announced that it is going to delete all the inactive Gmail accounts, including Google Photos, Gmail Messages and Google Docs on 1st December, 2024. This decision wasn’t all of a sudden as Google started warning all the inactive Gmail accounts about 18 months ago. Right now, Google is still sending out emails to different users to reply and take suitable measures if they do not want their inactive Gmail accounts to get deleted.

It is worth noting here that Google is only deleting Gmail accounts that have been inactive for more than 2 years. Only personal accounts will get deleted and there will be no effect on business and educational accounts. During account deletion, all user data that is within that account will get deleted.

Google has determined some factors which conclude as being active on your Gmail account. Those factors include sending or reading emails, watching a YouTube video, using Google search, using Google drive, sharing a photo and using that email to sign into third party apps or services. If a user is doing any of these activities on their Google account, this means that this counts as an activity and your account won’t be concluded as inactive.

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Google has about 2.5 billion active users right now and Google is deleting inactive accounts because of increased cybercrimes. Cyber criminals can easily access inactive accounts as they are vulnerable and can use those accounts for malicious activities. vice president of product management at Google, Ruth Kracheli, says that abandoned accounts have ten times more chance of not having a 2 factor authentication than active accounts. This means that they can easily get in the hands of a hacker.

If users want to save their accounts from deletion, it is best that they log in to their inactive accounts every three months. Ensure all security checkup and if you cannot remember the security details of the inactive account, use the Google account recovery process. It is good to have more than one Gmail account that you can use anytime if something happens to your primary Gmail account. Make sure to forward every important document and email to your secondary Gmail account so all cannot be lost. Using two factor authentication is also a good way to ensure the security of your account. If you want to do a security check on your Gmail account, use Google’s security checkup which is free and helpful to check if everything is alright on your account.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Did You Just Agree to Be Tracked? Apps Secretly Fuel Government Surveillance!

• Government agencies use Locate X to track citizens’ movements via app data, bypassing warrant requirements.
• Popular apps like weather and fitness apps collect and sell location data, which reaches agencies indirectly.
• Legal debates argue that users didn't consent to this level of surveillance by merely accepting app terms.
• Widespread Agency Use: Secret Service and others leverage this data, blurring the line between public information and private data rights.

Every time we download an app, we agree to terms we barely read, trusting that any permissions we grant—like location—won’t stretch beyond the app itself. But for years, agencies like the Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been using location-tracking tools that push these boundaries, raising critical questions about our privacy rights in the digital age.

The core tool here is something called Locate X, provided by Babel Street. It’s marketed as a research tool, and agencies technically aren’t supposed to use it in court. However, it is important to note that this tool enables agents to pinpoint someone’s movements with remarkable accuracy, all without a warrant. It’s tracking, sold as a service. And it doesn’t just capture where you are; it captures where you’ve been, where you frequent, and maybe even where you’re headed next.

According to 404Media, the arguments over legality run deep. Internal Secret Service emails reveal a rift over the tool’s use. Some officials argue that no warrant is necessary, claiming that people agreed to this tracking simply by accepting app terms of service. This “agreement” is a thin layer of consent, buried in legal jargon most users skip over. Yet, this is the reasoning offered: users “opted in” by granting location permissions. The reality, though, is that users likely never imagined their movement data might be handed over to government agencies through private companies that bought it.

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This internal debate surfaced after the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Carpenter v. United States in 2018, which established that accessing mobile location data without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. Some officials questioned whether using Locate X crossed that line, despite Babel Street’s claims that their tracking is different—it’s anonymous, they say. But when agents use Locate X to follow someone to and from specific addresses, it hardly remains anonymous. According to emails obtained via a FOIA request, Secret Service staff had serious concerns, noting that while the means of obtaining data might differ, the privacy intrusion is almost identical.

Yet, Babel Street argues otherwise. Their stance: since this data comes from users’ agreement with app terms, it’s entirely legal and requires no warrant. Locate X anonymizes data by using hashed identifiers, they say. Still, in demonstrations, journalists have shown that pinpointed location data reveals patterns: where a person goes, where they live, and likely even where they work. At that level of detail, anonymity is a very thin veil.

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Let’s take a step back: Locate X isn’t tracking data just from government contracts. This data begins with regular, everyday apps—weather, news, social, and fitness apps. These apps collect and often sell user location data to data brokers, who then sell it to companies like Babel Street. Once sold, this data is plugged into tracking tools like Locate X, creating a direct line from your phone to an agency that can follow your movements without you ever knowing.

Emails reveal that this access wasn’t limited to one agency or one type of investigation. The Secret Service’s Protective Intelligence Division reportedly used Locate X in criminal investigations. There are mentions of another division within the Service, the Office of Investigations Strategy, using it as well. In one instance, an official hoped to track a phone’s location in both LaGuardia and Ft. Lauderdale airports, connecting movements across state lines in a matter of seconds. And while agents discuss whether this kind of tracking requires a warrant, other officials seem to accept it as the new norm, likening it to any other “publicly available” information.

This leaves the concept of privacy up in the air. Locate X data, which was once treated as private and warrant-protected, has instead become transactional. By selling our data in chains of deals, private companies skirt legal requirements, delivering valuable intelligence to agencies that don’t want—or feel they don’t need—to seek formal warrants. Privacy becomes more like a business loophole than a right.

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After scrutiny, the Secret Service claims it no longer uses Locate X, but this doesn’t mean the practice has stopped. Other agencies continue to purchase data from brokers, accessing personal movement data without the hurdles of the judicial process. And with the rise of data brokers, the supply chain of location data seems poised to grow.

In the end, it boils down to a few hard questions: When you agree to share your location, do you know who really has access? How many hands does your data pass through before it reaches a government agency? And when privacy rights meet transactional data, is this even a choice anymore?

In the surveillance age, privacy is becoming a transaction, not a right, signaling the death of ethics and morality. Tools like Locate X blur the lines between safety and control. Our personal data, once private, is now commodified, used by agencies without consent or warrant. What happens when our movements are monitored, not by choice, but by a system that profits from our loss of privacy?

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Asim BN via Digital Information World

Study Finds People Are Losing the Desire to Stand Out Compared to 20 Years Ago: Is Social Media to Blame?"

According to a new study published in Collabra: Psychology, that analyzed data of over one million people between 2000 and 2020 and found that people are slowly losing motivation to stand out among people and be unique. According to the data, people are no longer defending their beliefs, have no desire to not follow rules and care about what other people think of them. People do not want other people to think differently about them so they do not express their opinions in public, mostly in online spaces.

There is also a rise in social anxiety among people which is making them sensitive to judgment. Researchers wanted to know why there is a decline in people desiring to be unique in the past 20 years. Study author, Bill Chopik says that use of social media has made people extremely cautious of what they want to say as they can experience backlash if they say the wrong thing. In a poll, 70% of people said that they self-censor what they want to say online because they think their opinion might be too controversial.

To test out if not having a desire to stand out is a recent phenomena or not, the researchers organized an analysis of large-scale survey data of over 1.3 million participants who completed the Gosling-Potter Personality Project’s need-for-uniqueness questionnaire between 2000 and 2020. The survey focused on three important points of concern: willingness to break rules, not having concern about what other people think and expressing personal beliefs in public.

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There were 32 statements in the need-for-uniqueness questionnaire, with scales from one to five. The researchers calculated the average scores for each statement. Then these scores were all analyzed year by year over the 20 years period. According to the data, there was a huge decrease in all three points of concern in 20 years. The biggest decline was seen in people’s willingness to defend their personal beliefs in public (6.52%). This shows that people are no longer expressing their opinions in public as they can turn out controversial too.

This could tell that individuals have adopted self; censorship and are afraid that they will be criticized if they express their opinions in public. This decline can also be due to an increase in the use of social media as the opinions of people are judged from every angle if they express them online. There also a 4.28% increase in concerns over how others perceive people. People have become more socially awkward and cannot handle being judged by other people. Now people want to get validation and acceptance from other people. People are also less willing to break rules now. They no longer have the desire to challenge social norms or social expectations. They do not want to become unique and they avoid social repercussions at all costs.

Despite this extensive research, it has some limitations too. As the study is only done over the period of 20 years, we do not have any idea about historical trends. If a full research is done, it can fill the gaps of this study and fully capture people's behaviors, and can help uncover how and why people do not want to be different or stand out anymore.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

YouTube Adopts ‘Swipe Up’ Gesture in Android Trial, Mimicking TikTok’s Navigation Style

If you’re an avid user of TikTok, you may be accustomed to the popular ‘swipe up’ gesture for navigating your way around short vertical content. Now, it appears that YouTube is following in the platform’s footsteps with a similar offering.

The video streaming giant is experimenting with the Swipe Up offering after seeing the success that TikTok attained. It’s also now on Instagram and YouTube Shorts. And soon, we do hope to see it take over the app’s standard video player.

First explored by Tushar Mehta, he showed how the app is playing around with the latest fullscreen video player where swipe up shows new video getting played.

The feature is just part of a limited test right now so was only seen on Android. Whatever the case might be, the change would seemingly be drastic. For now, using the swipe-up option just allows the viewer to exit their full-screen mode of viewing videos. When you swipe from the left or right, users can exit fullscreen. It’s the same as the arrow button seen on the top left-hand side.

For now, it’s not too clear if the Android maker will launch this to global audiences or not. It totally depends on the reception it attains. The app is not commenting too much on the feature just yet but we’ll surely keep you updated on this front.

Still, we’re curious to hear what you think. Can this potential change be a great way to navigate videos on the classic video player or not? Let us know in the comments section!

Read next: Instagram Dismisses Rumor It Deliberately Downranks Posts Tagged As Sponsored Content
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Instagram Dismisses Rumor It Deliberately Downranks Posts Tagged As Sponsored Content

The head of Instagram is debunking a very popular myth that accuses the app of downranking all sponsored content.

As a part of his latest array of informative posts, Adam Mosseri shared how there is zero truth to that notion. This includes how Meta never forces brands to pay to get a desired reach.

Mosseri adds that anything marked sponsored is treated in the same way as a usual post. Identifying posts with tags just helps the platform understand what content is sponsored. Therefore, no creator should ever fear that their posts would deliberately be downranked so it complies with local rules around the globe.

The common theory that most people have these days is how the app is making the most by downranking such posts as it’s another means to make sure both brands and partners pay for extra reach.

Some did point out how the app’s sponsored posts showed less engagement than those without the tag. The reason being is simple. Users just scroll on and treat it like it’s some kind of ad. As a result, it weakens reach and engagement.

So it’s likely that the tag reduces reach and it’s not simply a thing linked to Instagram as no efforts are made by the app to limit reach. Mosseri continued to justify the algorithm that does not take part in such behavior.

This is the latest of a new part of video posts arising from Adam Mosseri. He wishes to provide more data around specific elements of the app which users often have queries about.

In the past month, we saw Mosseri explain how adding brand logs to Reels will not result in it getting penalized. However, Reels featuring TikTok and YouTube watermarks do hit a reach penalty eventually.

We have to agree that the Instagram Chief’s comments are certainly valuable as they help to put a lot of myths to rest that creators feared for years. We don’t really blame creators either as Tech giant Meta does not have the best reputation for handling business accounts when it comes to organic reach.

In other news, Instagram is working with new options that make it simpler to produce AI variants of profile pictures. This gives rise to more stylish and artistic depictions of the user on the app.

One image shared by social media researcher Alessandro Paluzzi shows the app working on giving users the chance to produce an AI Profile Picture via direct edition options on their profile. With a few clicks of the button, you can use Meta’s AI picture generation tools to update images.

It’s going to be new for the app but isn’t too new for users on social media. We’ve seen Facebook already trial this option in the past and the same goes for both TikTok and Snapchat. So we can see how the feature would ensure Instagram is up to date with other arch-rivals in this regard.

Some feel the option is disingenuous. For so long, users on social media complained about things like bots and fake profiles impacting user experience. Now, you’re rolling out doctored pictures and false depictions of people who are real.

Meta already reported getting rid of more than 900 profiles using fake AI headshots to show them as real and now this.

AI headshots do use a lot of creativity and try to make it appear like a user’s image has the perfect artistic touch. Whatever the case might be, it’s still not you so that’s a point worth mentioning.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World