The Online Marketing Institute has identified the most the largest talent gaps and most in-demand digital skills of 2014. The 'State of Digital Marketing Talent' study consisted of interviewing 747 advertising and Fortune 500 marketing executives to find out what skills their teams possessed and which were most desired.

The Missing Skills: It's striking that talent is perceived to be a 1/3 short of where it should be. This could have a detrimental affect on performance, identify your talent gaps within your company and address them. As an individual, look where the gaps might be in your team and gain a greater understanding of these skills (making yourself more valuable to the company).

Data Translator

With the current wealth of data available to brands and the huge emphasis placed on analytics it has created a demand for individuals that can connect these 'statistics' to 'decisions'. Without these middle man companies can find themselves overwhelmed with raw data, the 'Data Translator' utilises their strategic understanding to help form ideas and make relevant decisions as oppose to just sharing information.

Mike Bugembe, Cheif Analytics officer at JustGiving, highlights the lack of these candidates who can work with data and also find the “nuggets of gold” to help a companies strategy. “The difficulty is finding one individual who can cover both spectrums,” he added.

Examples: Diageo and JustGiving

What you need: Ability to analyse marketing and other data and then clearly explain to a business what the findings mean. Have a background in analytics combined with a more ‘human’ role, such as school governor.

Digital Media Planner and Buyer

BIA/Kelsey, media advisers, forecast that advertising revenues for social media platforms will reach $17 billion by 2017. Although the demand for app developers is obvious, its the digital media planners which is also seeing huge growth. While the traditional media planner is somewhat a one-person department (or just a name on a list of approved outsource vendors), the digital media planner and buyer might be part of a department in the making.

Examples: iCrossing and Honda

Master Storyteller

Content, Content, Content! One of the buzzwords of the last 18 months, the focus on content as a marketing tool has created a number of roles; one of which is the "Master Storyteller". It is becoming more and more common to see brands trying to immerse their customer in brand stories. The role of the Master Storyteller is to create a consistent story that represents the brand and its values through multiple marketing channels.

Example: Cystic Fibrosis Trust

What you need: Be a great content strategist and know how to execute it across multiple channels. Former journalists who can apply their experience to a business will do well.

Digital All-Rounder

Digital experience is becoming an essential part of all marketing roles now. Although having a specialism is still very important, we're now seeing more brands demanding a general understanding of digital practise as a minimum requirement. This is not surprising when Accenture's recent study forecasted that digital will account for 75% of marketing executives budgets within the next five years.

Martin Riley, CMO of Pernod Ricard, agrees that digital experience and understanding should be integrated into all marketing roles. “As we define the marketing roles of the future, we can take general roles and specialist roles as a basis but we need to encourage specialists to gain a broad understanding of the business and the commercial aspects of what marketing is seeking to achieve overall, and to encourage generalists to gain a deeper understanding and hands-on experience of generating insights, innovation and creativity,” says Riley.

There's been much debate as to what Apple plans to do with social media analytics firm Topsy, but it's clear that having spent $200 million recently acquiring it, that it will play an important role in future developments. Companies such as Topsy, and a number of other start ups that are growing at a rapid rate, are trying to make sense of the everyday interactions that take place across a number of social platforms. This information allows brands to monitor campaigns, to see what is working and what isn't. Social data is taking consumer profiling to the next level; seeing what users pin, like, retweet, their interactions and feedback.