Mice in the Social Media Maze: Have We Found the Cheese?

Marketers love numbers.  And new numbers regarding social media marketing are in.

Michael A. Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, has issued his 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.  Published in April, Stelzner’s report outlines responses from 1898 participants to various questions regarding their social media usage.  When reviewing the numbers, it’s important to note that 63% of those surveyed are small business owners.  But despite an apparent lean towards the small business perspective, the report highlights some telling trends and statistics.

First, there are some big picture findings.  An overwhelming 91% of those surveyed indicated that they are currently employing social media marketing tactics, up from 80% a year ago.  Over 60% of respondents who have been using social media for a few years claimed that their use of social media has helped reduce overall marketing expense.  Now there’s a number that might catch an employer’s eye.

But what about attracting the all-important eye of the consumer?  85% of respondents identified “generating exposure for the business” as the number one advantage to their social media participation.  Among those who have been engaged in social media for a few years, 100% claimed that they are successfully attracting consumers through social media channels.

It’s one thing to get their attention.  What happens once you have it is another, and skeptics of social media usage often question the viability of leads generated through social network participation.   Stelzner’s study suggests that companies willing to devote just a few hours to social media marketing are seeing results.   Businesses that claimed to spend as few as 6 hours per week on their social media presence also claimed that they have generated “qualified leads” after only a few months.

Those successes are inspiring increased usage with a focus shifting towards the growing mobile market.  75% of marketers surveyed are currently using mobile networking apps to interact with fans, while another 43% have recognized the need to optimize their sites for mobile apps and have initiated the process.  While a relatively small percentage of businesses are developing mobile apps (19%), there’s an increasing overall awareness among marketers for the need to engage on the go.

The numbers are encouraging.  But they’re also incomplete.

Examinations of social media marketing strategies continue to overlook two major considerations — 1) ethical issues when entering social media and 2) the issue of what is done with the information that is gathered through social media participation.

Last year’s First Annual Social Media Survey conducted by PRWeek and MS & L polled 271 chief marketing officers, vice presidents of marketing and marketing directors.  As explained by Kimberly Maul breaks down some of the survey’s findings in her October article entitled Reality Check, the survey asked a series of questions around ethical issues that companies must consider when venturing into social media spaces.  Respondents were asked if their companies had engaged in any of the following activities:

• positioning company-generated content as consumer-generated
• changing content related to the company that others have posted in social media
• removing negative comments or content from social media
• offering gifts for company or blog reviews
• paying cash for company or product blog reviews

Only 57% of those surveyed were able to deny using any of these tactics.  A surprising 21% of respondents admitted to presenting company-generated content as consumer-generated, while 13% revealed that they had changed content relating to their company that others had posted in social media.

Analysts and strategists have trumpeted social media as a conduit for genuine communication and collaboration between company and consumer.  An organization’s successful navigation of social media spaces depends largely on their ability to enter with an authentic voice.  If these numbers are any indication, this is proving even more difficult than skeptics had predicted.

The study revealed that nearly half of the businesses surveyed admitted to using dishonest tactics while attempting to participate within social media spaces.  Other survey responses indicated that many companies are attempting to carve out a social media niche without any concrete strategies or objectives.  In a presentation outlining current social media trends, Cathy Freeman explained that only 29% of companies who are using social media have installed an organizational social media policy.

Without a cohesive strategy in place, one can’t help but call into question the intentions of these corporations.  Are they exploring social media as a means of nurturing genuine relationships with consumers, or are they simply doing it because the guy next to them is?

Responses in the 2009 survey to questions concerning what becomes of the information that is gathered through social media platforms cast further doubt.  When asked if their company had ever made any changes to products or strategies based on consumer feedback from social media sites, just 34% of the companies using social media indicated that they had.

Much attention is paid to finding ways to better measure the effectiveness of a company’s social media presence. The question of how to measure ROI was the number one question on respondents’ minds in the 2010 survey.  Yet only a third of businesses have ever acted in response to the input they receive.  Why worry about collecting information or the accuracy of it if it’s not going to be used to effect change? What are marketers learning from their time spent “socializing,” and how are they employing their newly gained knowledge?

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