Marketing - Written by William Hobson on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 11:15 - 0 Comments
Brand marketers dubious over social media
Despite the hype surrounding social media in marketing news circles, the majority of major brands remain skeptical of its benefits a an element of their marketing strategy.
A survey by the Internet Advertising Bureau has revealed that only a fifth of marketers at major organisations such as Coca-Cola, RBS and the Central Office of Information (COI) think that social media is an important element of their marketing strategy. Only 22% said that it forms a major part of their promotional work, with many more reportedly confused about the role that the channel could effectively fill in their overall plans.
Nearly fifty percent of respondents differed in their opinion on which department should be responsible for their company’s presence in social media. One third believe that it was the role of the PR department, 12% said that the research department should be heavily involved, whilst 7% said that IT was the best suited department to develop and implement social media strategy.
The survey also found that a third of marketers plan on increasing the social media spend of their digital marketing budgets this year from the 6-14% share reported for 2009, to 6-20% for 2010. However, the majority (75%) of brand marketers participating in the survey thought that the biggest challenge for the channel was proving that it can deliver Return On Investment (ROI), with measurement also identified as a significant hurdle to marketing investment. This is despite Dell, the PC manufacturer, reporting that it generated $6.5m of direct sales via Twitter in two years of social media activity. In December 2009, the company had some 1.5 million followers on Twitter, located in 12 different countries including the US, Brazil, China, Mexico and Japan.
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