New types of jobs appear as new technologies and services come to the fore and eventually disappear as the tasks get subsumed into daily operations. One of these new types of jobs I did not discuss in last week's column on IT jobs is being called the ‘corporate social strategist'.A core part of this career choice is the use of social media as an additional way of reaching or communicating with clients and potential customers.About 75 percent of leading companies have tried their hands at social media, according to a report by Altimeter, a consulting firm that surveyed about 140 of those holding the new position.The analysts found that the emerging role of “social strategist” is seen as critical in the adoption of new media by corporations. Currently, their primary tasks are to lead the company's social programme, participate in social media, and act as a resource for other units.“Yet most social strategists and their programmes lack maturity,” the report says. Only 23 percent had a formal programme spelling out a long-term direction for their work.I believe some are there not by choice, but by appointment, as is usually the case when a company needs someone to fulfil an emerging role and does not want to hire someone dedicated to the task. If that fits your description then Altimeter's warning is for you: “Be proactive or be relegated to a social media help desk”.Often, you are not going to get full backing from management in a role they don't understand (yet), as don't most people.You have to therefore deal with six major challenges: face resistance from internal culture, have to justify return on investment, deal with a lack of resources, develop an approach to an ever-changing technology, face resentment from colleagues who think you are a burden rather than a profit producer and lastly, encounter even more demands on your time as other units move ahead with Facebook and Twitter.Most social media strategists have an average of about seven years in digital marketing and less than three in social media experience.All possessed a Bachelor's degree and 20 percent had advanced degrees. Of those with degrees, 34 percent studied communications, the rest had marketing, business and technology backgrounds.In the end however, the prognosis is the role will become obsolete. Yep, you thought you had the career defined, but suddenly everyone in the company is now a social media strategist.That is, business units will weave social technologies into their strategies and operations, and won't have to depend on an inside expert. Guess you will just have to move up to become management. Businesses should therefore think about hiring someone who is a good programme manager rather than someone selling themselves as a social media maven.If you can't afford a dedicated social media person on staff, the next best step is to download from Business.com a report called ‘Top Tools to Measure Your Social Media Success'. It is a way of determining what software to use to monitor your efforts online, giving you a way to focus on those that work for your business.The free tools include SocialMention a search engine that aggregates user-generated content; TweetBurner, which tracks activity on Twitter and FriendFeed; Hootsuite to monitor and contribute to multiple social networks through one interface; and Google Alerts (of course).It's missing my favourite piece of tracking software, TweetDeck, which I use daily to track interest in EU policy topics. Business.com also recommends some commercial software, including Trackur, Scout Labs, Meltwater Buzz and Radian6, but these are expensive.Do you really want to pay $13,000 a year to use Meltwater? A matrix comparing all the features of the recommended software is really useful in helping you make a decision as to what will work for your business.“In the end, selecting the right social media monitoring tool comes down to clearly defining social media goals, understanding how you want to measure the impact and defining who will use the tool and when they'll need to access it,” the report says.Send any comments to Ahmed at elamin.ahmed[AT]gmail.com