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Examining The Gap Between Attitudes Towards Social Media And Investment In Social Media.

Article:

SIIA Survey: Marketing Executives Believe Social Media is an Effective Tool; Not Yet Investing Significant Resources

Related Class Topic - Please refer to the notes from week 3&4 regarding E-marketing strategy with focus on engagement/conversion metrics slides. The article is relevant to that class in that it seems possible that this ‘gap’ might be related to companies not clearly defining their social media plan objectives before picking the measurement metrics they implement.  These metrics ultimately influence how much investment dollars are budgeted to social media.

Overview of Article - Reviews results of a Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) survey of 106 marketing executives (88% B2B marketers) related to their companies use of social media.  Focused on their companies' use of email, mobile marketing and social media to build their brands, gain leads, and improve customer support.  SIIA is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries.

Survey of 106 marketing executives regarding their company's use of social media:

90% use social media

75% of those people think it has positive impact

54.5% spend less than 10 hours per week investing in social media

35% spend less than 5 hours

65% said they want to invest more in social media

70% said they will increase their use of Twitter and LinkedIn

59% of businesses are using social media use web traffic as an indicator of social media ROI

53% are using qualified leads as a key ROI metric

75% don’t outsource any social media efforts

60% of respondents said less than 5% of their deals began through social networking interactions

Privacy is top ethical concern

Most marketers predict that the biggest trend in 2012 will be greater communication and quantification of value to customers

Article Key Point - Gap exists between attitudes towards social media and investment in social media.

“It is remarkable to see that, despite their strong belief in the power of social media, over one-third of marketers are engaged in it for only five hours or fewer every week”

Discussion Question 1 - What does this 'gap' in investment say or indicate to you? Why is this happening?

Article Key Point - Marketers do recognize the need to dedicate more resources to their social media efforts going forward.

“And with more marketers now applying traditional ROI metrics--such as qualified leads--to their social media efforts, they are more likely to get a clear sense of what level of investment makes sense.”

Discussion Question 2 - Should your social media success metrics be broad industry favorites or tailored to your specific business?  Step 1 in the measurement process is ‘review your objectives.’

Discussion Question 3 - Qualified leads are a measure of ‘conversion effectiveness’.  Could a company become too focused on 'conversion effectiveness' metrics as a determining factor of measuring their social media success?  What type of company or under what circumstances should a company weigh the ‘engagement effectiveness’ of their social media strategy? 

Source: State of Social Media Marketing: Top Areas for Social Marketing Investment and Biggest Social Marketing Challenges for 2012 (www.awarenessnetworks.com)

Additional Questions:

Discussion Question 4 - Do the statistics reveal anything else important to you that marketers should take note of?

Discussion Question 5 - Should a new company be more focused on ‘engagement’ or ‘conversion’ when they first enter an industry?

Discussion Question 6 - Do you think most companies have a social media ‘strategy’ or just go through the motions?

Discussion Question 7 - Is there anything implicitly different between a B2B marketer’s social media objectives and a B2C marketer?

Video - Maybe the marketers surveyed should watch this video before building their 2012 social media budget. Does ROI as the defining metric in social media seem ambiguous to you?