This is a great white paper with very valuable content by Michael Stelzner.
To understand how marketers – thus you as a small biz owner – are using social media, Michael commissioned the Social Media Marketing Industry Report: How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.
White Paper Source set out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing with this report. In this report you’ll find:
- The top 10 social media questions marketers want answered: Nearly 700 open-ended responses and summarized all the major questions that marketing pros want answered, were analyzed.
- The time commitment: White Paper Source examined the weekly hours marketers invest in their social media efforts. This analysis will be helpful for marketers just getting started.
- The benefits of social media marketing: This rather beefy section reveals all the major advantages marketers are achieving with their social media efforts. They also looked at how time invested and experience enhances the achieved benefits.
- Commonly used social media tools: Wondering which social media tools marketers are using the most? Those questions are answered, along with an examination of what the most experienced folks are using.
- Social media tools people want to learn more about: In this section, the up-and-coming tools that marketers are most interested in learning about are examined.
- Other analysis: White Paper Source also analyzed how age, gender, experience, business type and weekly time commitments impact all of the above findings.
If you’re pondering starting social media marketing, these findings will help push you over the edge. If you’re already onboard, feel free to examine what the really experienced marketers are doing (and use this study to persuade others).
Major findings:
- Top three questions marketers want answered: (1) What are the best tactics to use, (2) how to do I measure the effectiveness of social media and (3) where do I start?
- Marketers are mostly new to social media: A significant 88% of marketers surveyed are using social media to market their businesses, BUT 72% have only been doing so for a few months or less.
- How much time does this take? A significant 64% of marketers are using social media for 5 hours or more each week and 39% for 10 or more hours weekly.
- The top benefit of social media marketing: The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, indicated 81% of all marketers, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships.
- The top social media tools: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order.
- Social media tools marketers most want to learn about: Social bookmarking sites were ranked of highest interest, followed closely by Twitter.
The above findings are merely a taste of what is in this report. In the report you will find more than 30 charts that visually convey some of the fascinating findings of this report. Download the report here.
