What is the value of Social Media
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Fri, Mar 26, 2010
We read and hear about Social Media but what is the value of Social Media? Let's look at the extent of social media marketing being carried out by companies, the tactics they are using and what business objectives they are trying to implement through social media related activity. Social media marketing can include the use of social networking sites and on-site activity including blogging, user-generated content, ratings and reviews. So what is the value of social media?
Luckily enough we have the Value of Social Media Report from eConsultancy that is based on a survey of 400 companies between Dec 2009 and Jan 2010. The first finding is based around what is the most used social media network. Facebook came up as the most used in Social Media with 85% of companies using facebook as part of their marketing strategy. Next was Twitter with 77%, then Linkedin at 58% and not far behind was YouTube at 49% of companies using as part of their social media and marketing strategy. So does this mean that they see the value in social media?
I like to look at the value of social media by how much companies are willing to invest in social media. Last year 67% of companies polled increased their investment in social media with 81% of companies expecting to increase their investment again in social media during 2010. Generally if companies are willing to invest in Social Media there must be some value attached it.
When we talk about the value of social media, naturally ROI always comes up. But the majority of companies (61%) are poor at measuring the ROI of social media. But what do companies that invest in social media see at the value of social media.
Companies see the main goal of social media is an increase of traffic to their website. With 74% of companies saying that they use social media as a means of increasing traffic. Following an increase in traffic 64% of companies see that brand recognition is the second most important business objective in terms of the impact of social media. So is there a value to social media?
Many companies may try to view the value of social media is an increase in sales but only 56% of companies polled say that they try to increase sales though social media activity. However it should be noted that only 24% of companies actually use sales a metric for measuring social media success.
So is what is the value of social media, it seems that is may be still too early to tell but it appears that companies see benefits in social media and are willing to invest more in the coming year.
PS: Two things to check out over the weekend:
PS: Two things to check out over the weekend:
Ad Tech Event
London Blog Club