In March, the UK-based Chartered Institute of Marketing released Wave One of its Social Media Benchmark Report. The study, canvassing the opinion of 1295 marketers (64% of them in the UK), sought to understand how businesses are adapting to, investing in and drawing value from social media. Funny, we often wonder the same thing.
Here are some of the main points:
- 71% of businesses surveyed are using Twitter
- 56% Facebook
- 53% LinkedIn
- 41% YouTube
Why are marketers using social media?
- 28% Just experimenting
- 27% Core part of campaign
- 18% Customers use it
- 12% It’s expected
- 5% Other
- 3% Don’t know
- 2% Our competitors are there
How are they doing?
Not so good. Just 16% of marketers rate their efforts on Facebook as Extremely Effective, while a surprising 33% admit that their activities on the site are Not At All Effective.
The other social media also score badly:
- Twitter: 15% Extremely Effective, 24% Not At All Effective
- LinkedIn: 15% Extremely Effective, 37% Not At All Effective
- YouTube: 9% Extremely Effective, 44% Not At All Effective
Oh dear.
And as for skills:
- 6% think their social media skills and competencies are optimal
- 32% rate themselves average
- 31% see themselves as improving but below the industry average
- 19% confess they are fundamentally ill-equipped
- 12% don’t know what to think (which tells its own story)
Still a bit of work to do, then. Perhaps they need a little bit of help.
