New Social Media Marketing Adoption Report

Last year my agency, MotiveLab, syndicated a marketing whitepaper with Netline, entitled “12 Essential Tips for Success in Social Media”. We were overwhelmed with the results. Over the course of the past year, almost 3000 people downloaded the whitepaper, with more than 1800 registering and answering a short survey about their attitudes and approach to social media marketing.

Recently we analyzed the results as two separate data sets divided into six month periods, and compared the first six months to the second six months to see any changes in attitudes and opinions. The report is available for free at the MotiveLab Web site, and the results are fascinating.

I won’t rehash all the data in the report, but it shows a clear acceleration in adoption of social media as a marketing practice, and fairly balanced opinions about its value and application, despite all the frothy hype and counter-hype in business reporting. (The whole debate last week about the “failure of online communities” reminds of when we were all debating about whether or not the Internet was a smart marketing investment. I thought Francois Gossieaux answered it nicely.)

One note about the data that I thought was pretty fascinating. Less than 5% of marketers cited PR or Advertising agencies as resources for developing social media marketing programs, despite the fact these companies are making a tremendous effort to add social media to their service offerings. Looks like they need to do a little more week eating their own dog food and connecting with the marketing community to refine their approach.

2 thoughts on “New Social Media Marketing Adoption Report

  1. francois gossieaux

    Hi Chris – great report, and thanks for the link. Even though part of me is not surprised, it is still amazing to see how only 8% of respondents use ad agencies and PR agencies to help them with social media-based marketing programs….

  2. Chris Kenton Post author

    Hi Francios. It’s nothing like the phenomenal report your team just put out, but thanks.

    I should have been clearer in my statement of the PR/Ad data–less than 5% each. It was just under 5% for PR, and 3% for ad agencies. About 8% if you combine them as a group. I think what makes those numbers interesting is the degree to which PR agencies especially have worked to position themselves strongly in the social media space….

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