Marketers turn to social networks in tough times

Social networks are becoming a very cost-effective tool for marketers in the time of global economic crisis and are expected to gain further support from the market, according to a new study by WhitePaperSource.

The study, which questioned some 900 of the leading marketers, said that more than 88 per cent of the business establishments are using social media sites, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, to reach out to their clients and further enhance their exposure beyond the conventional reach using other traditional means.

In Dubai, some of the leading private and government establishments are already engaged in using social network sites and are increasing their dependence after seeing the desired results.

The study, encouraged by the growing trends and increasing dependence on this new-found tool, also indicates that this is a new trend, given that almost two thirds of respondents said they had only been using social network channels for a couple of months.

Highlighting some of the unique points of the report, Michael A Stelzner, founder of the consulting company, said most marketers who use Facebook and Twitter create or link to content and gather followers exposed to their brand and businesses. The upside is that it is free. The downside is that it is time consuming. This is for sure a matter of concern as 64 per cent of the questioned people confessed using social media for five hours or more every week, and 39 per cent use it for 10 or more hours.

He said respondents did not seem to have much of a sense of how effective their efforts are proving. "They don't know how to measure how successful they are," said Stelzner in an official communiqué that accompanied the report. "But [they] are just realising that they are getting response, often a lot more than before, using social media."

Accepting the positive affects of the habit, about 80 per cent of the establishments accepted they had generated exposure for their business while 61 per cent said they had improved traffic and growing lists. But generating business is a different matter: only 35 per cent said they had managed to do that using social media.


Use of social media marketing

Companies and individuals revealed some startling figures regarding the use of social networking and the time spent on these sites. The overwhelming majority of 88 per cent indicated they were employing social media for marketing purposes. Business owners were more likely to use social media marketing than employees working for a business. The figure is 90 per cent plus in favour of business owners in comparison to 81 per cent by employees.

Categorising the demographics of the surveyed people, the report did not distinguish between male and female users, but in age distribution, it indicated that more than 92 per cent of the followers of social media were aged between 30 and 39. The study showed a significantly encouraging number of elderly users. People aged 60 to 69 were just getting started with social media marketing than other age groups.

When asked to rate their experience using social media marketing for their businesses, a significant 72 per cent of marketers have either just started or have been using social media for only a few months. The largest group just getting under way with social media marketing was sole proprietors (30.2 per cent) and owners of two- to 100-employee businesses were the most experienced (29.3 per cent reporting doing social media marketing for years).

Converting the time spend on social networking into a businesswise productive exercise was a matter of concern for most employees, but the findings were encouragingly positive as it established a direct relationship between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment. For people just beginning with social media, the median weekly time commitment was two hours per week. However, for people who have been doing this for a few months, the median jumped to 10 hours a week. And for people who have been doing this for years, their median is 20-plus hours each week.

Commonly used tools

By a long shot, Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, with Twitter leading the pack. All the other social media tools paled in comparison to these top four.

Owners of small businesses were more likely to use LinkedIn than employees working for a corporation. Another interesting finding was that men were significantly more likely to use YouTube or other video marketing than women (52.4 per cent of all men compared to 31.7 per cent of women).

A close examination of which tools experienced social media marketers are using compared to those just getting under way provides further insight.

Benefits of social media

In response to the most obvious question of benefits of this comparatively new networking tool, a significant 81 per cent of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic and growing lists was the second major benefit, followed by building new partnerships.

An unexpected benefit was a rise in search engine rankings reported by more than half of the participants. As the search engine rankings improve, so will business exposure, lead generation efforts and a reduction in overall marketing expenses. About one in two marketers found social media generated qualified leads. However, only slightly more than one in three said social media marketing helped close business.

The survey report also distinctly defined how business has benefited using these channels of mass communication. Owners of small businesses (two to 100 employees) were more likely than others to report greater exposure (84.8 per cent reporting benefits). Nearly all marketers spending more than six hours a week on social media marketing found exceptionally positive results.

For more than 61 per cent of those who invested a few months in their social media marketing report new partnerships were gained. The survey also sought answers from the participants about their intentions to learn more about this tool and which of the websites would they like to learn and know more about.

Judging by the bookmarking yardstick, Twitter seems to have edged out slightly to number one spot and following that is a four-way tie for the third place between LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Facebook and Digg/Reddit/Mixx. Small business owners were much more interested in understanding social bookmarking sites than other groups. In addition, those over the age of 40 were more interested in learning about Twitter than their younger marketing cohorts.

Those investing 16 or more hours per week were most interested in learning about FriendFeed and those investing less than six hours a week were most interested in learning about Twitter.

A lot of people want to learn how to use the many social media tools available. What follows are tools marketers are interested in based on how they have been doing social media marketing.

Explaining the mechanism and demographics of the survey, the report stated that about 2,500 marketers was e-mailed and asked to take the survey. After a total of 10 days, the survey was closed with 880 participants.

Most people who took the survey were small business owners (70 per cent), followed by employees working at a company (26 per cent). Among the small business owners, seven out of 10 were sole proprietors representing nearly half of all survey participants.

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