Blog: Marketing and Social Media

The Big Picture - Social Media Marketing

How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses

Want to learn about the latest trends in social media? Want to know how experienced businesses are doing it right?

Michael Stelzner, Founder of Social Media Examiner, has just released the 2012 report on the results of his fourth annual social media marketing study. He taps into 3800 marketers and shares their experiences and insights – the who, what, when and why of social media marketing.

Michael has invited me to share this information with you – completely free. You’ll learn, in 42 pages packed with data and charts (over 70 charts!), what online marketers are doing, and what they plan to do online.

Major Findings of the Study

Michael summarizes the key points below. Thank you, Mr. Stelzner!

• Marketers still place high value on social media: A significant 83% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business.

• Measurement and targeting are top areas marketers want to master: Forty percent of all social media marketers want to know how to measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media and find customers and prospects.

• Video marketing holds the top spot for future plans: A significant 76% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube and video marketing, making it the top area marketers will invest in for 2012.

• Marketers seek to learn more about Google+: While only 40% of marketers are using Google+, 70% of marketers want to learn more about it and 67% plan on increasing Google+ activities.

• Top three benefits of social media marketing: The number-one benefit of social media marketing is generating more business exposure (reported 85% of marketers), followed by increasing traffic (69%) and providing marketplace insight (65%).

• Top five social media networks/tools for marketers: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and YouTube were the top five social media tools used by marketers, in that order.

• Social media marketing still takes a lot of time: The majority of marketers (59%) are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and a third (33%) invest 11 or more hours weekly.

• Social media outsourcing underutilized: Only 30% of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing, only a slight increase from 28% in 2011.

You can find the original page for the report here:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2012/

We’d love to hear your feedback on this. What do YOU think?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide will be available in late April 2012.  Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com