eMarketer reports that the Social Media Marketing bandwagon is in motion, according to the latest market study from Equation Research. Their survey of U.S. brand marketers found the majority already using social media.
Some marketers were planning on adding social media activities over the next year, including 15 percent of respondents in businesses with fewer than 50 employees and 24 percent of those whose companies had at least 500 employees.
The most popular social media channels for brand and agency marketers were Facebook, Twitter, online videos and blogs -- each used by more than one-half of survey respondents.
Respondents reported common barriers to social media adoption. Among brand marketers, 37 percent did not know enough about social media to begin, and another 37 percent said there was no good way to measure its effectiveness (seriously, compared to traditional "leap-of-faith" mass media marketing?).
Agency marketers reiterated those concerns, and were also likely to say that social media was not proven or tested as a marketing strategy (31 percent). No surprise, funding was also a problem for about one-quarter of brand and agency respondents.
Apparently, the informed marketers do track various social media metrics. More than six in 10 brand and agency respondents reported tracking Website visits. Marketers also monitored feedback, links and mentions on other sites, and the impact on sales.
That said, 14 percent of brand marketers and 12 percent of agency marketers reported not measuring social media efforts at all. Perhaps these are some of the same people who reported the "barriers to adoption" are measurement related. Obviously, you can't manage what you don't attempt to measure.