Budding entrepreneurs looking for jobs that offer them creativity and the chance to make big bucks may want to follow in the footsteps of Mark Zuckerberg and enter the social networking industry.

Zuckerberg went from an unknown IT brainbox to international star over night after he developed the now ubiquitous social networking site Facebook, which now has millions of member all over the world. The social networking site has also been utilised by many savvy business people as an ideal platform for marketing.

The American computer programmer's creation gives marketers the chance to display their advertisments to a much more narrowly targeted audience. For example, a car company can place their ad on a person's profile who has listed motoring as one of their favourite interests.

Such marketing potential has transformed Zuckerberg's hobby into a fulltime job which has earned him millions of dollars, international notoriety and made him into a entrepreneurial star the world over.

DataTalk Research, a statistical consultancy group which specialises in developing data and systems solutions to support business communication for customers and employees, claims that direct marketing on social networknig platforms in an increasing market where jobs may be available.

Statistics from the Marketing Responsivity Index for July 2008, based on data from 1,000 interviews and produced by DataTalk, backs up this assertion. It revealed that people are more likely to respond to direct marketing in the future.

The index revealed a 76 per cent rate responsivity to direct marketing, which was up 11 per cent on June 2008, and found that telephone marketing is the least effective form of marketing.

Mike Hare, research director at DataTalk Research, said: "Internet usage is going up as a result of the use of social networking sites.

"It's a significant medium for communication nowadays. The use of viral marketing is the way forward in that sector because popup adverts generally are not well responded to."

He added that the more advanced the social communities that use the community websites become, the "more cautious they become and the easier it is for them to spot deliberate attempts at viral marketing".

Research conducted by internet media and market research company Nielsen Online, published in June 2008, also bodes well for this industry.

It found that Britons are spending four per cent more time online a month than they did a year ago, with member communities (social networks and blogging sites) gaining the biggest increase in total UK minutes over the last year (+1.3 billion minutes) followed by online games (+0.5 billion minutes).