No denying it. Within the corporate circle, MBA's might just be the most sought after degree. Yet, something got me thinking recently. The market is overflowing with graduates in HR, marketing and much more. So, is it time that colleges started offering an MBA in social media?

Educators and policy makers might laugh it off. So may most employers and fellow professionals. How hard can it possibly be? Social media is just about adding a few posts and leaving comments on random pages on Facebook and Linkedin, right? Besides, everyone's got 100 or more friends on each of these networks (and are, hence, self-proclaimed experts). So why train someone to use social media at all?

Well, it's simple. As all marketing professionals will know, "word of mouth communication" is the most effective way of marketing a brand. In our ADD-infected generation, social media is the online version of getting the word around. Any contemporary client (or consumer) will search for a brand (or product) online before indulging in it. Your social media positioning will decide to a great extent how well you will be received by the general public.

Social media marketing is not merely posting updates on Facebook walls. It requires a great degree of intuition, research and underestanding. Students must be able to use standard techniques to conduct market research and devise more effective marketing strategy. They should be able to analyse and understand consumer behavior, anticipate possible backlashes, and build upon a target audience. They should also be able to create SEO-oriented messaging, and track down inbound traffic from various possible channels.

I needn't explain that there are no standard procedures for any of these. This leaves graduates, and future professionals, in a blind spot when it comes to online marketing. A one week overview of social media, once in a semester, is not going to help them either. They know better than you how to publish posts, and add photos. Rather, a comprehensive course that educates students on all facets of social marketing, best use policies, and much more, should be institutionalized.

Here are a few more reasons why an MBA in social media makes sense:

• Social media is, and will be for quite a while, an effective tool in online marketing.

• While anyone can use social media, only trained experts can use it efficiently enough to drive and generate traffic.

• Unless you have an expert on board, your competitor will eventually steal an edge over you.

• It is one place where you can communicate across demographies and geographies.

• Creating and maintaing a brand image is, undoubtedly, a task that requires some professional expertise.

• Students and young professionals need to find out better skills and tools to make themselves more marketable in a saturated job market.

So what do you think? Is it time for an MBA in social media yet?