STC Marcom SIG
The MarComm SIG is a resource for members (marketing and PR writers, editors, designers, web developers, and consultants) to discuss MarComm best practices. We welcome feedback, as well as new volunteers and contributors.
-
How Marketers are Using Social Media to Grow Their Business
Posted on March 27th, 2009 3 comments
Social Media Marketing Industry Report
Earlier this week, I received a flutter of tweets through my twitter account about Michael A. Stelzner’s hot off the presses white paper: Social Media Marketing Industry Report-How Marketers are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.
Whether or not you’re involved in social media marketing today, you should take a moment to read the paper. Stelzner provides great details and plenty of charts to help you build a business case for easing into this new realm of marketing.
Major Findings About Social Media Marketing
Want to know what you’ll find in the report? Here are Stelzner’s major findings. I found these to be very interesting and spot-on with what I have experienced while working with my clients. In fact, the top three questions are always the first thing questions my clients ask!
Top Three Questions Marketers Want Answered
- What are the best tactics to use?
- How do I measure the effectiveness of social media?
- Where do I start?
Marketers are Mostly New to Social Media
- Of those surveyed, 88% are using social media to market their business (author’s note: call for survey takers was sent out through social media, so this is not a surprising number, really).
- BUT only 72% have been doing so for only a few months or less.
How Much Time Does This Take?
- 64% use social media 5 hours or less each week.
- 39% use social media 10 hours or more each week.
The Top Benefits of Social Media Marketing
- 81% reported that generating exposure for the business was the top benefit
- increasing traffic
- building new business partnerships
Top Social Media Tools
- Blogs
Social Media Tools Marketers Want to Learn About
- Social bookmarking sites
What are your opinions of these findings? I’m looking forward to learning of your perspective in the comments.
Louellen Coker is President and Founder of Content Solutions, a certified-woman owned business. Content Solutions meets your content needs by helping you create and present your content in an innovative, engaging, and purposeful manner. You can find additional musings on her blogs: Content Notes and Content Portfolio.
3 responses to “How Marketers are Using Social Media to Grow Their Business”
-
Great article. Just the type of stuff that needs to be coming from STCers in the marketing space.
I’ve been using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and my own social network, The Content Wrangler Community for the past year to raise my profile and attract new business. While it’s been a learning experience (and I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned here and elsewhere in the coming months) it has been well worth the effort.
Social media technologies may most often be stand-alone applications today, but my crystal ball says it won’t be long until all software products build social networking components into their architectures. This is good news for end-users!
However, it should be noted that because it’s so new and so very misunderstood, many marketers (and PR people) are trying to use services like Twitter as glorified fax machines (just another way to send out the same old drivel to the masses). “Here, this is what we’re offering….want some?” is the typical — very old school approach. So, while social media tools are coming of age and becoming very useful to marketers who understand them, there’s a long way to go before most professional marketers adjust their marketing approaches and strategies to accommodate social media.
More on this later.
-
Thanks for the comments. I’m about 6 months behind you in adopting and using Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin as a marketing tool for my company and for my clients. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts about adjusting marketing approaches and strategies. Specifically, and from the CIC’s perspective that works with small businesses in an “old school” industry, how to convince clients that this is a direction they want to go.
-
Blogging Your Way to an Excellent Portfolio Free Training to Start April 6 | Your Content Portfolio March 31st, 2009 at 02:43
[...] 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. This is a great opportunity to flesh out your own answers to the top questions marketers ask about social media I discussed over at the STC Marketing Communications [...]
Leave a reply
