Member Article

More social media engagement needed, say marketing experts

Marketeers in the North East lack the necessary skills to implement social marketing strategies in 2012, according to a new report.

In the first ever Social Media Benchmark survey, the Chartered Institute of Marketing found that businesses are still struggling to manage social media effectively.

20% of marketers found that their business was ill equipped to take advantage of social media, while only 25% of respondents have established any plans to address lack of competency in this area.

Less than 10% of business believe they have the optimal skills and competencies to successfully implement a social media strategy.

Sam Meredith, Chairman of the North East Branch of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)
commented “It has been apparent for a while that businesses are struggling to get to grips with
the new media platforms and it is obvious that they will have to invest in training to address the
widespread skills gap.

“We plan a number of events in the North East to help our members and other local business people to get up to speed on the exciting world of new media.”

A third of businesses also admitted to only experimenting with each of the four major platforms, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn, which means they are not getting the best value from them.

Twitter was the most used of the four platforms, and almost 50% of marketers were found to be updating their accounts at least once a day. 81% of marketers were found to be investing more money on Twitter as many predict this will be a significant market in 5 years time.

Many also find it difficult to convince senior management about the value of social media. A mere third felt that social media channels have the potential to help their business grow, which is at odds with businesses’ growing investment.

The Institute is now concerned that the gap between those who perform well on social media and those who don’t will widen even further if businesses do not invest the skills, time and training necessary to profit from networking sites.

“The true sign of social media maturity in business will be when it is treated as just another channel, with its own characteristics and skills requirements”. Sam added.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .