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 bus