While consumers and marketers both say that interacting through social media has strong benefits, there is still more engagement and interaction required by both groups, according toĀ Ā Lithium Technologies, which sells customer experience solutions.
āThere is no excuse anymore, when you consider the simplicity and sophistication with which marketers can monitor social customer experiences, engage and build communities around the brand, and clearly measure business value using tools like Lithium provides.ā
āConsumers are increasingly expecting, even demanding, that brands interact with them through social media,ā said Katy Keim, Lithium CMO.
āItās not enough to just show up on social channels. Smart brands are taking control of social customer engagement by figuring out how to tackle meaningful activities with their social customersāthings like collecting feedback and new product ideas.ā
Consumers are influenced by social media and they expect a two-way dialog with brands across the social web, but rarely get it. A surveyĀ of consumer attitudes, conducted by Lithium in April and released during theĀ Lithium Network Conference (LiNC) 2012
Consumers Rarely Get The Two-Way Dialog With Brands They Want On Social Media
, about social media reveals:
- While 25% expect to hear back from a company when they tweet about a brand or product, only 9% have actually received a response
- 35% say after ālikingā a brand on Facebook, they expect to hear from the companyāyet 58% say that they have never received a response from company after ālikingā it
Marketers need to demonstrate social media marketing ROI to the C-suite, but arenāt able to. A separate surveyĀ of marketer attitudes around social media, conducted by Lithium and MarketingProfs in April, reveals:
- 74% of marketers say creating a community around their brand is a social media business objectiveābut only 18% of marketers say their company has an online community
- 86% say they actively use Facebook in their marketing effortsābut only 2.8% report that when fans ālikeā their brand on Facebook, it results in better quality interactions
- 42% say they are very concerned about demonstrating the value of social media to executive managementābut only 4% say their ability to measure the overall impact of social media is excellent
- 31% say that customer retention is quite important, but only 4.6% of marketers say they are able to measure customer satisfaction (Net Promoter Score) extremely well
While social media marketing ROI remains elusive for most, findings indicate marketers who combine two assets well are best able to realize the full potential of social media and demonstrate the most impressive ROI:
- Leading-edge technologyālistening to social customers who want to be heard, building online communities to deepen social customer engagement.
- A mature, strategic approach to measurementātying social media objectives to real business outcomes like increasing revenue and driving awareness.
āThereās a clear disconnect between the value of social media and marketersā ability to demonstrate and act on that valueābut it doesnāt have to be that way,ā said Keim. āThere is no excuse anymore, when you consider the simplicity and sophistication with which marketers can monitor social customer experiences, engage and build communities around the brand, and clearly measure business value using tools like Lithium provides.ā
While large portions of marketers are not yet truly measuring and understanding the impact of their social media efforts, a significant vanguard (35%) do say that social media marketing helps to meet primary business objectives better than most other channels.