I just read an article on BusinessWire entitled “Executives Must Realize and Learn the Power of Social Media” http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20080228005828/en. The report is based on 71 phone interviews with marketing professionals in four countries – US, Canada, UK and France in late 2007. While 71 phone interviews does not a statistically significant study make, the findings are encouraging in that none of the respondents thought Social Media was a passing fad. Additionally, it validated for me the need for marketing firms to help educate corporations on how to embrace social media and leverage the capabilities to jump the curve of its competition and ensure success.
Furthermore, nearly 50% of the respondents agreed that the use of social media for corporate, brand and product marketing believe it is a vital component of corporate communications that should be monitored at the executive level and allocated significant resources. Additional findings include:
• “When asked about the uses of social media, respondents endorsed it as a strategic tool to gain consumer insights (37%), build brand awareness (21%) and increase customer loyalty (18%).”
• “…88% of U.S. respondents and 65% of global respondents were in agreement that reading and analyzing social media to understand unfiltered consumer perceptions would have the most impact on the future of their businesses. Word-of-mouth campaigns were cited as having the second greatest impact. All countries were in broad accordance at 62%, but the U.S. once again led with three-quarters agreeing on the effects of these marketing campaigns.”
• “The potentially most effective use of social media, chosen by more than 50%, is creating a user community of bloggers to provide user experience feedback. Another 47% believe using social media vehicles, such as YouTube, to generate a viral campaign would also be very effective in a product launch. Specifically in the U.S., more respondents support the idea of utilizing social media to boost the effectiveness of their social media efforts than their global counterparts.”
The article goes on to say that the early adopters of Social Media (they refer to them as the Revolutionaries) are more advanced in their understanding of social media and how to embrace it. The more cautious marketers (called the Wait –and-Sees) are only at the beginning stages of understanding social media.
Most importantly for us marketing consultants, the barriers cited for not embracing social media included lack of senior executive commitment and lack of expertise among business suppliers. The time is now for service providers to help educate companies to this new way of marketing. It validates why we started focusing our services in the space as we too saw a knowledge gap both in organizations and in suppliers at large.
For the full research report, visit www.SocialMediaInBusiness.com.
