We are pleased to share the findings from our semi-annual report on The State of Social Marketing Report: 7 Major Findings & In-Depth Analysis. Awareness surveyed over 450 marketers from a wide cross-section of industries, company sizes and experience with social marketing. Our semi-annual State of Social Media Marketing report includes insights from both those leading the efforts at the management and C-level, as well as a number of business leaders who are helping to bridge the social gap within their enterprises.
Here is a taste of the top-level findings analyzed in detail within the report:
Misalignment Between Business Objectives, Measurement Methodologies and Social Marketing Investment:
Although marketers agree that they need to drive higher customer engagement and revenues with social marketing, only 47% of them actually measure what they do and invest in what matters. The majority of social marketers (66%) still spend time and effort growing the number of social fans and followers or creating and publishing content (56%), while only 35% are focused specifically on integration between social marketing and the rest of the organization.
Social Marketers Are Starting to Measure What Matters
Social marketers are starting to track different aspects of the value they are driving – such as brand’s effectiveness in social, customer engagement, and revenue generation. To measure revenue generation, marketers look to:
- New customers coming from social, as reported by 63% of respondents; new leads by 60%
- Sales driven from social (59%)
- Only 41% report having individual social profiles for their fans and followers,
Marketers Are Yet to Tap into the True Potential of Social
In a finding that mirrors the recent McKinsey study, few companies report using key enabling technologies such as social CRM, which can help make sense of their social following, segment and prioritize it and target their communications for business results.
Social CRM: Slow Adoption But on the Rise
Only 16% of marketers who responded to the survey are currently using a Social CRM system, while another 21% plan to by this year’s end. Social CRMs, when adopted more widely, will be used to integrate social prospect and customer data with traditional sales and marketing data. This will provide a much-needed layer of insights that will help marketers be more effective and efficient in the social age. Socially mature brands are adopting Social CRM at a higher rate- brands with a social marketing budget of over $100,000 have a Social CRM adoption rate of 44%, with an additional 26% who plan to use such a system by the end of 2012.
Social Marketing Budgets and Resources Quite Insufficient to Drive Value
54% of marketers surveyed indicate they do not have an allocated budget for social marketing, and are solely relying on human resources. With no money or resources behind them, most social marketing initiatives remain small, siloed, with little to no direct impact on key business drivers such as leads and sales.
The ‘State of Social Marketing Report: 7 Major Findings & In-Depth Analysis‘ contains additional insights on top social marketing investment areas, top challenges for 2012, top social media platforms used today, the rise of social CRMs, along with a fun section revealing some of marketers’ most admired brands. You can also compare these results to those culled from our January 2012 State of Social Media Marketing report.
We welcome your thoughts, reactions and feedback. Let us know how the insights and findings presented in the State of Social Media Marketing report will help shape your thinking as we prepare for 2013. Don’t hesitate to ask us the tough questions –we want to provide insights into best practices, successes, and notable trends to help you, social marketers, do more and do better.
Mike Lewis
