About 50% of marketing executives say social media is already a “vital component of corporate communications” though they are taking their time adding it to their marketing mix, reveals a new study by TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony.
“Most marketers think that social media is another channel that companies can use to their advantage, but the reality is that most companies are taking a very cautious approach,” said Michael Ennamorato, senior vice-president of TNS Canadian Facts, in a release. TNS interviewed 11 Canadian marketing executives for the study, with 71 senior marketers in Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the United States taking part in total.
TNS found that barriers to greater use of social media include a lack of senior management commitment and best practices, followed by the absence of controls, standardization, time and resources.
Half of the marketers polled said social media should be monitored at an executive level, and provided with significant resources. Nearly 30% agree social media is a revolutionary new opportunity for business, while 21% feel social media is something to monitor at the staff level and without significant resources.
Social media can build brand awareness, support product launches, and increase loyalty, said Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing officer of TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony. “Surprisingly, however, our study shows that many business executives are still new to social media, which points to a large gap between attitudes and action that must be addressed.”
Given a list of six objectives social media could be used for, gaining consumer insight was the top choice with almost 37%, while 21% feel it plays a role in building brand awareness, 18% said it can increase consumer loyalty, 14% see its potential to enhance corporate reputation and 7% chose launching new products as a top objective.
Almost 40% said their company has piloted at least one social media initiative. (In Canada, seven of the 11 respondents said their company has made at least one social media effort.)
Nearly 17% said lack of knowledge or skills among marketing staff prevent them from embracing social media. The same percentage identified lack of best practices and proven models, and 10% cited budget as the reason.
In terms of how they would use social media, more than 50% said creating a user community of bloggers to provide user experience feedback about their products or services would be “very effective.” More than 46% said it would be “very effective” to create a viral campaign using YouTube or other social media. Over 25% said creating a competition that requires people to visit MySpace or YouTube to view content would be useful.
