Companies must use social media or die, says survey

Companies must use social media marketing in 2010, or risk being left behind by their competitors. But this comes with a note of caution.

According to results of a global survey covering 1068 marketing professionals worldwide, 66 percent of respondents will be investing in Social Media Marketing (SMM) in the next 12 months. These were figures released by marketing analytics company Alterian by its Singapore office.

Of those investing in SMM, 40 percent said they would be shifting more than a fifth of their traditional direct marketing budget towards funding their SMM activities. This supports other statistics from the survey which found the majority of respondents (67 percent) feel social media is either ‘increasingly important’ or ‘critical to success’.
Alterian Senior Vice President Asia Pacific, Chris Tew, said 2010 marked the start of the digital decade for marketing. He said: “Untargeted and irrelevant marketing techniques are now redundant and the results of this survey show many in the industry recognise this.”

The survey found more than a third (36 percent) of respondents was investing in social media monitoring and analysis tools, a significant percentage considering the maturity of the channel.

“This is a reflection of the growing understanding that a social media marketing strategy needs to be based on listening to customers and prospects and its ROI needs to be measured,” Chris Tew said.

Warning: use with caution

Tew adds: “The one thing to remember, however, is that investment in Social Media Marketing is futile without adequate measurement.Without adequate investment in listening and measurement tools it renders any anticipated investment in social media ineffectual. The key to an effective social media strategy is listening. “

The survey also explored the extent to which organisations integrated marketing technologies across their organisation. Almost half of respondents (42 percent) said they do not incorporate click stream and web analytics data into their customer and email database.

“This is a worrying statistic as it shows many organisations are losing any advantage that this valuable actionable insight could give them,” added Tew.

The research examined the importance of customer engagement and found more than half of respondents (51 percent) were placing a ‘fair’ or ‘significant’ amount of effort on moving from a campaign-centric direct marketing model towards multichannel customer engagement.

“Engaging with customers is becoming paramount and the yardstick by which we measure those brands that survive and those that don’t,” Chris Tew said.
“Marketers now need to appeal to the individual and engage with customers on a one-to-one basis. The easiest way to achieve this is by investing in Social Media Marketing and Social Media Monitoring, and by embracing the web.”