Social media has gone mainstream and “nearly every business on the planet is exploring social media marketing initiatives.” So says Michael A. Stelzner in the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Social Media Examiner.
This study surveyed over 3300 marketers with the goal of understanding how marketers are using social media to grow and promote their businesses.
A summary of the report’s primary findings:
• Marketers place high value on social media: A significant 90% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business.
• Measurement and integration are top areas marketers want to master: Onethird of all social media marketers want to know how to monitor and measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media and integrate their social media activities.
• Social media marketing takes a lot of time: The majority of marketers (58%) are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and more than a third (34%) invest 11 or more hours weekly.
• Video marketing on the rise: A significant 77% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube and video marketing, making it the top area marketers will invest in for 2011.
• Marketers seek to learn more about Facebook and blogging: 70% of marketers want to learn more about Facebook and 69% want to learn more about blogging.
• The top benefits of social media marketing: The number-one advantage of social media marketing (by a long shot) is generating more business exposure, as indicated by 88% of marketers. Increased traffic (72%) and improved search rankings (62%) were also major advantages.
• The top social media tools: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order. Facebook has eclipsed Twitter to take the top spot since our 2010 study.
• Social media outsourcing underutilized: Only 28% of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing.
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© 2011, TechJournal. All rights reserved.
Tags: benefits of social media marketing, blogging, business exposure, facebook, improved search rankings, Report: Social media marketing goes mainstream, Social Media Examniner, twitter, Video marketing, YouTube
Looking forward to digging deeper into the social media marketing report, but one initial question comes to mind regarding the last highlighted stat: social media outsourcing underutilized.
The report says “only 28% of businesses are outsourcing social media marketing efforts.” Which direction are we hoping that number goes? Still struggling to see the benefits of shirking SM engagement responsibilities/online community management. Anyone else?
Excellent question, Aaron. I hope that number goes up. I may be biased, of course, since I run a firm that does precisely that. But you your concerns about abdicating responsibility for social content are quite valid. This is why I take great effort to educate my clients on how to properly control their social activities. Firms like mine routinely distribute content that is pre-approved, and monitor platforms for activity, escalating any customer service issues to in-house management for direction. I think it would be unwise to simply “hand over the keys” to anyone without oversight.
Social media marketing is the best solution to get some quick visibility of your small entrepreneurship.Social media marketing has now become a part of the online marketing mix as it can drive traffic and inbound links to your hosted website. It has direct influence on search engine rankings since search engines also use social media presence to determine the quality of a website.Even,it is obvious that Social Media Marketing runs through Social Networking such as Facebook,Twitter,Linkedin et al.So,Social Media Marketing delivers effective interactions about your promoted services/products among customers & fans.
….I dont know if it was the need for a cocktail or if it was just a random creative thought but in thinking about Social Media Marketing and more specifically the term Social Media the idea of the perfect Social Media Elixir came to mind. The first part of the term Social Media is Social which means a consistent presence online mixed with continual content production and engagement of your audience. Once you understand how the two words fit together you begin to understand Social Media Marketing.