Why so antisocial? IT marketers use of social media.
February 27th, 2009 | Garrett MannForrester’s much awaited study on B-to-B Social Media participation released this week, giving key insight into just how active IT Buyers are in using social technology. According to the results, 91% of these users are at least “Spectators”, meaning they actively read blogs, watch videos, listen to podcasts, and visit ratings/review forums. 69% of these users indicate they view social media for business purposes. More importantly, 58% (37% business use) are “Critics”, meaning they post comments in blogs, leave ratings/reviews of products, contribute to wikis, etc. Not only are they viewing social media, they are highly active participants. Now that we have covered the statistics, let’s get to the crux of the issue: If you are a marketer targeting IT Buyers, it is clear that YOU MUST consider social outlets as part of your marketing mix.
So why does most research point to slow adoption of social media among marketers? In working with many clients in the space, we have found that adoption is slow due to a number of reasons, most importantly being lack of insight into prospect’s social behavior, and measurement/ROI.
Forrester’s study provides the insight into social behavior, but embracing social media means adjusting your traditional view on marketing ROI. It is not about generating “leads” or “pageviews” but about ROMO - Return on Marketing Objectives. Before embarking on a social initiative you need to decide as an organization what you are looking to get out of it. Is it thought leadership, is it gaining customer insight/creating a direct pipeline to your customers or prospects, is it monitoring conversations around your brand? Regardless, according to Forrester, you need to start with the audience and not the technology. In other words, don’t just launch a blog, wiki, or forum because you want to get into social media - like traditional media, you need to go where your audience is.
How are you integrating social media into your marketing efforts? If you’re not, what are your main hesitations?
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Great post! In addition to Return on Marketing Objectives (love that, did you coin that term?) social media is also about branding and building relationships. I find the hesitance about ROI to be humorous among marketers because it’s more of an excuse because they are afraid of the medium. What’s the ROI on printing a brochure? What’s the ROI of running a series of TV ads? There are many traditional marketing methods that don’t conform to a traditional method of measurement. They get used because they are comfortable with them and people aren’t as comfortable with social media. I believe social media has reached a tipping point…heck my aunt who is 65 is on Facebook now. If you aren’t on board…you could be left behind.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
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