Study: Marketers Embrace Social Media Big Time

Want to know how marketers really feel about social media?

Check out these statistics from Alterian’s seventh annual social media marketing survey.

– 70% work with 3 or more suppliers to accommodate marketing services such as digital
marketing, database marketing, data hygiene, creative & brand, strategy, web analytics etc.
– 23% work with a “staggering” 7 or more suppliers
– 66% will invest in social media marketing, known as SMM
– 40% will shift more than 20% of their traditional marketing to SMM
– 36% invest in social media monitoring and analysis tools

The marketing industry is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Set against a backdrop of tight budgets, increased demand for accountability, the explosion in social media and informed, active and connected consumers, marketing is moving from mass communication towards multichannel customer engagement. While consumers are driving this change, marketers also are expecting their service providers to keep up and streamline and connect the services they offer Source: Alterian study.

One sentence stands out: a new type of partner is emerging – a Customer Engagement Agency (CEA) as does this quote:

“We’ve hinted before that agencies that can’t transition from pushing out messages to nurturing customer connections aren’t long for this world. Agency readers, heed our warning. Services firms that lack data management, analytics, listening, social media execution, and strategy expertise will dry up.” – ”US Interactive Forecast”, Forrester Research, Inc., July 2009

To learn more, download your copy of Alterian’s seventh annual social media marketing survey – registration required – then come back and let us know what you think.

Your Turn: What do you think is getting shifted out of traditional into SMM? How do all of those suppliers integrate?

Image: Barbara Rozgonyi copyright 2009 for www.thesociallens.com