Social media is continuing to flummox many marketers, with only a third actively using it to promote their products and an additional third giving up after failing to crack the medium.
And, according to a new report by Catalogues 4 Business, 20% of businesses in the UK are yet to develop a social media strategy, compared to 31% who have embraced it.
However, when compared to a C4B study from 2013, there has been a 36% drop in usage, suggesting that many businesses attempt to adopt social media, before giving up.
The report revealed that, despite its drop in popularity, social media is still the fifth most effective marketing tool for businesses. According to the study, 14% of respondents stated that their social media strategy successfully delivers sales, while networking was cited as the number one driver at 24%.
The study also found that social media was often used in conjunction with a catalogue as part of a wider marketing plan, with 33% of socially active businesses also implementing a catalogue in their strategy. In addition, the results suggested that 46% of companies that used email marketing used a catalogue alongside this approach.
C4B managing director Ian Simpson said: “I find it a real eye-opener that social media was a more popular tool for businesses in 2013 than it is this year. I would’ve assumed that this figure would have risen, not fallen so dramatically. Does it imply that many businesses have made an attempt before giving up? You would expect all companies to have social media included in their marketing mix. It’s a fantastic method of customer interaction – for both existing and potential customers. Perhaps an insufficient social media strategy failed to see initial attempts get off the ground.”
The study also looked at the most popular platforms that businesses opted to use when executing their social media strategy. The results revealed that Facebook was number one at 40%, followed by LinkedIn (35%) and Twitter (33%). Google+, which didn’t even feature as a relevant marketing tool in last year’s report findings, is now used by 17% of businesses that have invested on social media.
Brands exit social media in droves http://t.co/m9bSeqatUB #directmarketing #socialmedia #advertising #digitalmarketing
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