Overall one third of marketers said that they had only used social media for a year in 2010, while this year that number has jumped to 50%. Of these marketers using social media 39% of them utilize it 1-5 hours per day. It seems to be that the more social media experience a marketer has the more time they spend utilizing these sites. There is a direct correlation between the age of the community manager and the amount of time they spend managing social media a week. (ages 20-29, spend most time).
COMMENTS: This is not surprising since most companies are now focusing more on more on social media. People are continually on their computers, phones, and tablets. Print, Radio, and TV are becoming a thing of the past. It is also no surprise that the younger demographics are the most active on these social media sites. These young demographics grew up with computers friendster, Myspace. It’s only natural that they will be the ones most at ease with implementing a marketing strategy on similar platforms.
“The number-one benefit of social media marketing is standing out in an increasingly noisy world.” 88% of businesses used social media because if “generated exposure” for them. Over 2/3 of marketers said that they strongly agreed that social media helped them close business deals.
COMMENTS: Social media is an easy, cheap way to put your business out there for others to see. If you do it well and engage your audience with your knowledge they will be more likely to use your service, than say watching a quick 30 second clip of what your company does on TV. Engaging your audience makes them more familiar with you and they will remember you better. This extra reinforcement of social media connects possible customers on a more personal level.
Most Popular Social Media in order:
Facebook (92%)
Twitter (84%)
LinkedIn (71%)
Blogs (68%)
YouTube or other video (56%)
Social bookmarking/news sites (26%)
Forums (24%)
Geolocation (ie. Foursquare) (17%)
Groupon (or similiar) (6%)
Myspace (6%)
Interesting note that last year (2010) Twitter was in 1st place with 88%, followed close by Facebook (87%).
Around 75% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube/video, Facebook, Blogs, and Twitter.
COMMENTS: It is interesting how Twitter and Facebook are switching places for 1st and 2nd place. Both are great platforms to utilize by any business. Twitter is really great for real time happenings with your business or industry. Facebook can give more than 140 characters and the interaction on FB tends to be more in depth than just a simple glance or retweet. As for increasing several of these platforms, its a great idea of course because companies may be saving money that expensive radio/TV ads cost.
28% of marketers said that they “were outsourcing their social media marketing efforts.” This number has doubled since last year (2010). Outsourcing included Design/Development (17%), Content Creation (10%), Analytics (10%), Monitoring ( 7%), Research (6%), Strategy (6%), Community management (4%), and Live tweeting of events (3%). In addition to social media marketing, 71% of companies want to increase their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as an additional source of marketing.
COMMENTS: I think that its great to see companies realizing that they could use some help in the social space. If you do social media, it should be done the right way. Outsourcing design and content creation is great because these people will know how to catch a consumers attention and translate that into successful marketing for the company. This outsourcing allows the company to work on their services and less on how to market in a new, burgeoning space.
[This data represents the self-employed (33%), Business owner (15%), Businesses with 2-100 Employees (30%), Businesses with 101-500 employees (9%), Businesses with 501-1000 employees (3%), and Businesses with 1000+ employees (7%).]
For the full report go to: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/SocialMediaMarketingReport2011.pdf
Pingback: The Right Way To Think About Social Media | CompSights