This week the State of Social Media Marketing by Awareness was released. This is an annual survey (US based) looking at a range of social media questions to gain insights into what is changing in the social media arena.
Some of the insights included:
- The underesourcing of social media within organisations still presents a challenge. I am very aware of this issue after talking with clients but also my Masters students at UTS who are marketing managers and deal with this issue daily.
- Most social marketing departments are severely underfunded
- ROI is still seen as a key challenge though most companies are measuring it
- So how are companies keeping up to date with the latest social media news? Blogs, Peers and Conferences were the top ways to gain news and insights
- The big three platforms are Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn
- Most companies are using a variety of free and paid monitoring tools
- In 2012 Blogs, Forums and YouTube are the platforms organisations are planning for. This seems interesting as they are almost the old-school or original platforms many of us who first entered the space around 2005/06 were originally using. It seems the old platforms are having a resurgence.
- Presence and frequency of content remains a top priority for novices and dabblers
- Social Media leaders will venture into new platforms and focus on processes and tools to help manage their social marketing investment
- In 2011 only half of the respondents reported measuring the success of their programs and those that did measure their primary measure was reach. It looks like there is still some way to go in the measurement stakes in terms of usage and elements measured.
- The most experienced social marketers plan to invest in robust social media management platforms compared to social marketing novices
View the full State of Social Media Marketing report for more details including a range of charts and graphs