Alterian Study Finds Increasing Focus on Social Media Marketing
by Bill Ives
Alterian conducted its seventh annual survey on online marketing. This year’s sample covered 1068 marketing professionals worldwide. It found that 66 percent of respondents will be investing in social media marketing in the next 12 months. Where is the money coming from in an ear of tight budgets? The survey found that 40 percent of those investing in social media marketing said they would be shifting more than a fifth of their traditional direct marketing budget towards funding their social media marketing activities. This supports other statistics from the Alterian survey that found that the majority of respondents (67 percent) feel social media is either ‘increasingly important’ or ‘critical to success.’
The survey also found that 36 percent of respondents are investing in social media monitoring and analysis tools. It is a growing field and I have discussed a number of them on this blog. This is a significant percentage, considering the maturity of the channel. It appears to reflect a 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. However, the 64 percent who are not planning this investment may be left behind, as you need to see what impact your efforts achieve, as well as what customers are saying about you.
The research also explored the importance of customer engagement, a critical component to success in the opinion of many, a view I share. It found that over half of respondents (51 percent) are placing a ‘fair’ or ‘significant’ amount of effort on moving from a campaign-centric direct marketing model towards multi-channel customer engagement – in fact only 7 percent are making no effort at all. This is good news.
The Web and social media continues to change marketing, whether it is for products or politicians. The same holds for traditional news media as many long time news providers have found out too late. It appears that some marketing professionals have awakened to this change and are making steps to take advantage of it. 2010 will be an interesting year for business applications of social media, both inside and outside the enterprise.
