Our need to carry out this research starts not only from the theoretical and empirical gap that currently exists, but also for an additional pragmatic reason. This type of teaching should not be viewed only as a number of specialized subjects to be taken into account as part of a Master’s or Postgraduate Degree program, but as cross-curricular education in all curricula in the field of communication, given the presence and influence of social media channels in the professional fields un-der the umbrella of degrees in Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations, Audiovisual Communication, and of course, Digital Communication and Multimedia. This is mainly due to the fact that in the first place, this type of communication through social media has not yet reached maturity (Mejía, 2014), and second, the university system is still immersed in the redefinition of its role in the current context (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, 2010). Despite the lack of studies, many communication faculties in Spain already provide their students with education in social networks. These are either carried out as independent subjects dedicated exclusively to social media or as content included in broader subjects. In this way, from a practical perspective, it is important to resolve this gap in academic research in order to gain knowledge about the current programs of Spanish degrees in social networks. With this information, we can approach the educational reality of students who will be employed in the future as community managers or social media strategists, as well as in other positions, and determine the shortcomings of the Spanish university system in this type of education. Finally, from a theoretical perspective, there is a large amount of research for which the object of study is the social network in universities. This consolidated interest in determining the influence of social media on the university institution has resulted in publica-tions that analyse the phenomenon from the perspective of the creation of virtual learning environments, multidirectional interaction of students, the perception of students and teachers regarding social learning networks, etc. However, with the exception of the communication by Balandrón and Correyero (2010) with regard to the profile of the community manager, research related to the creation and management of social networks as a specific subject of study in Communication de-grees offered in Spain have not been found.

Therefore, in this investigation we start from the hypothesis that the Communication Faculties of Spanish Universities offer academic programs that do not respond to the demands of the current labour market regarding professionals who special-ize in communication through social media.

3. Methodology used in the research

Three analysis techniques have been chosen in order to accomplish the proposed objectives and the verification of the hypothesis in such a way that we provide the study with a methodological triangulation that gives validity to the results obtained. The analysis has been carried out chronologically in the following order:

Regarding the quantitative techniques employed, we used content analysis of academic and professional publications related to the definition of the roles and skills of the professional profiles of community manager and social media strategist. This research method allowed us to gain knowledge in two areas. Firstly, the ideal characteristics for these professional roles, and secondly, valuable information for the definition of the competencies that we will analyse using the research method that follows: in-depth interviews.