Enterprises Will Continue to Spend on Social Media Despite Spotty Success
A survey conducted by Deloittle, Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research indicated that 94% of enterprises expending dollars for social media plan to maintain or increase their investment.
Despite the fact that investment in online communities and other social media campaigns by enterprises has been strong, many companies are having a tough time meeting business and marketing goals with these vehicles.
While some of the respondents agree that social media has helped them with word of mouth advertising, customer loyalty and brand awareness, many others report that the new phenomenon has had less that a substantial impact on their bottom line or customer acquisition costs.
Don’t Give Up Yet…
With any new business trend or phenomenon, adaptation and successful execution will take time and refinement. Think about it. When Steve Wozniak proposed a personal computer to his employer HP in the mid 70’s, they thought he was off his rocker. Look at how much enterprises rely on computing today.
To further support that point, several aspects of the study indicate that large companies’ continued use of communities and social media has already started to mature, particularly in the area of tracking and measurement.
This year’s survey revealed that more companies are paying closer attention to non-active users (commonly called “lurkers”). Almost one-third of respondents have begun to capture data on how these individuals derive value from their community as opposed to keeping all of their focus on active participants.
“While we are seeing signs of maturation in this year’s study, there are still plenty of companies who do not realize the power of communities, and others who have not yet figured out the proper approach for leveraging communities as part of their business,” said Francois Gossieaux, partner with Beeline Labs and a senior fellow with the Society of New Communications Research.
Goals, Measurement Disconnect
The survey revealed significant gaps between community goals (word of mouth generation, customer loyalty and brand awareness) and how success is being measured.
As of now, it appears that the top two analytics for measuring success are the number of active users (34%) and how often users perform social functions (posting, comment, blogging, group creation etc.), which indicates that participation is still considered to be the biggest measure of success.
On the other hand, more potentially useful measures – such as increase in search engine rank and citations/links on other sites – are less often used, pointing to a mismatch between the desired outcome and how that outcome is measured, the study found.
This is mostly like due to the fact that many companies are simply “bolting on” their communities and social media tool sets. Companies need to completely integrate social media and the information it outputs into the existing stream of business processes within their company. This will take new management strategies and practices.
