A majority of marketers worldwide consider social media critical to success this year, with many aiming to increase budgets, the results of a new study have shown.
An international survey by marketing analytics company Alterian of more than 1000 marketing professionals revealed 66% plan to invest in social media marketing this year with many saying it is “increasingly important” or “critical to success.”
Of those investing in social media marketing, 40% of respondents said they would be shifting more than a fifth of their traditional direct marketing budgets to fund this activity. Over a third (36%) of marketers said they were already investing social media monitoring and analysis tools.
Chris Tew, senior vice president for Asia Pacific at Alterian, said the industry is entering the “digital decade” for marketing.
“Untargeted and irrelevant marketing techniques are now redundant and the results of this survey show many in the industry recognise this,” he said.
“The one thing to remember, however, is that investment in social media marketing is futile without adequate measurement...Without adequate investment in listening and measurement tools it renders any anticipated investment in social media ineffectual. The key to an effective social media strategy is listening.”
The study also showed that more than half of marketers were placing a “fair” or “significant” amount of effort on moving from a “campaign-centric direct marketing model” to a focus on “multichannel customer engagement”.
Alterian will be running a webinar discussing the research at the inconvenient time of 2am Saturday morning (Sydney time). However a recording will be posted here should you want to check it out over the weekend.
The full report will also be available here (registration required)
