Recession? Not for Social Media Marketing!
The latest report from FORRESTER (Q4, 2008 SOCIAL MEDIA ONLINE SURVEY) outlines a very clear trend:
53% of the marketers are determined to increase their social media budget during the recession. Further 42% said that they will keep their spend intact and not reduce it.
Very clearly 95% of the marketers are positively inclined towards investing in Social Media, even during recession.
Though the survey also brings out the fact that 75% of the marketers have allocated USD100,000 or less for social media marketing!
This implies that social media marketing spends are small but definitely growing.
If you dig deeper into the reasons for the above, it’s evident that as a new medium, Social Media is bound to have a small start, and it will be in the best interest of marketers to remain invested in Social Media for a long term.
Recession is the best time to keep in touch with your customer, to maintain the quality of your product and to keep the customer engaged for feedback and in new product development. Because when you come out of recession-your customers will remain bonded with you, which acts as an entry barrier for competition in good times, post recession.
All the above benefits can be achieved by leveraging Social Media Marketing. Hence the marketers just need to stay invested here for long term.
Another important aspect of the small start stems from my belief that Social Media Marketing starts with ‘listening’ to your target audience and ‘tracking’ your brand perception. Both these activities do not entail huge investments- but do entail meticulous planning and long term strategy to be able to graduate from listening to engagement and then to conversion.
Hence in these fledgling times for Social Media Marketing, small but definite growth is extremely encouraging!
· The sample size is 145 interactive managers, nearly 75% of which worked at companies with 1000 employees or more. The survey was conducted between November 2008 and February 2009.
· Data Source: Forrester
References: http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3ie2b23ab2b6e7cd345fdea0cfaaef529e
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/03/16/report-social-media-marketing-up-during-recession/
