Marketers struggling to get to grips with social media have received a small crumb of comfort from the Chartered Institute of Marketing – they are not alone; fewer than 10% of firms believe they have the skills to implement it successfully.
Despite this, 74.5% are planning to increase their spend on the medium, according to the first wave of the CIM’s Social Media Benchmark report released today.
Both findings will no doubt be welcome news for agencies offering social media expertise, though, as well as the fact that one in five marketers said that their business is fundamentally ill-equipped to take advantage of social media. Worryingly, the survey also revealed that only a quarter of respondents are yet to establish any plans for addressing the apparent lack of competency in this crucial area.
The survey, which questioned 1,500 businesses worldwide – including 900 in the UK – found almost a third admitted they are still just experimenting with each of the four major platforms – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Twitter emerges as the channel most used and most frequently updated with 47% of marketers updating Twitter once a day and 71 per cent of marketers using the platform compared with 56% using Facebook, 53% using LinkedIn and 41% using YouTube.
The CIM says convincing senior management of the value of social media is proving to be a major challenge. Only a third of businesses felt that senior management really understands the role of social media and why a particular platform is being used.
This could remain a major stumbling block if the TNS Digital Life study – released late last year – is to be believed. It claimed nearly two-thirds of UK consumers don’t want to engage with businesses on social media anyway.
CIM head of insights Thomas Brown said: “2012 is supposed to be the year in which business use of social media matures, but these results show that we’re a long way away from this at the moment.”
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