Major brands are looking for social media support to deal with the impact of TikTok on their businesses, with chief marketing officers on the hunt for both people and agencies with specialist skills in the area.
So says the “Marketers Most Wanted Report”, created by monitoring briefs posted by CMOs and brand owners on the Studiospace platform. The latest study details the demand for agency services from major brands including Google, HSBC and Legal & General.
The report found that social media and content made up 15% of briefs for agencies, overtaking user-experience (UX), which was down from just under 17% of briefs in May to 13% in June. Meanwhile, demand for creative and production increased from 11% to 12%, coming in at number three for the second month running; brand strategy remained fourth with 8%.
Studiospace chief executive Pete Sayburn said: “Brands are grappling with the emergence of TikTok as a prominent channel and what this means for how they are engaging with customers.
“TikTok is a topic on everyone’s lips and it is seen both as an opportunity but also potentially a threat. It means many CMOs are changing their social media and content strategies as they want to ensure they are on the right side of the influencers.”
According to Sayburn, the demand for social media support also reflects the difficulty many brands are experiencing in gaining access to top quality social media support on a long term basis.
He added: “It’s a rapidly evolving area and so it’s a battle to stay current and on top of things. Major brands are struggling to attract and recruit top social media talent into their businesses on a permanent basis.
“Marketing departments are now coming to us and asking for access to specialist agency talent, adopting an on-demand, outsourced talent model.
“UX is still high on everyone’s list. Customers are cash strapped due to the cost of living crisis and so are not spending their money easily. This represents yet another tough test for marketers and the year ahead looks challenging, too.
“But there’s a new breed of marketers emerging who recognise it’s impossible to be an expert in everything but who are learning to work with a wide range of specialists, while managing a high quality team in-house.”
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