Social Media Marketing Trends
There’s been a lot of discussion online about the adoption of social media as a marketing practice. Last week, the Wall Street Journal posted a story on their blog citing a report that claims the vast majority of online communities fail. One of the authors of the report quickly took issue with the interpretation of the data, and an online debate caught fire across Twitter, Friend Feed, and all the A-List blogs. Do “most” communities fail? Or just “many”? And is this a sign of the unrealistic expectations and hype over social media as a marketing phenomenon?
Controversy sells newspapers, and it also drives Web traffic. The cycle of buzz, overhype and claims of disaster are predictable, but they don’t tell you much about the viability of social media as a marketing practice, or how it’s really being adopted by marketers. So I’m excited to have some data to share that shows some of the trends in social media adoption by marketers over the past year.
Last year, MotiveLab syndicated a whitepaper with Netline, entitled “12 Essential Tips for Success in Social Media”. We were a little overwhelmed with the results. Over the course of the past year, nearly 3000 people downloaded the whitepaper, and more than 1800 registered for the download and answered a short survey about their attitudes and approach to social media marketing. Recently we analyzed the results as two separate data sets divided into six month periods, and compared the first six months to the second six months to see any changes in attitudes and opinions. The report is available for free at the MotiveLab Web site, and the results are fascinating. I won’t belabor all the data, but it shows a clear acceleration in the adoption of social media as a marketing practice, and fairly balanced opinions about its value and application, despite all the frothy hype and counter-hype in business reporting.
To me, it looks a lot like the trend in adoption of the Internet over a decade ago. Lots of initial hype. Lots of backlash and debunking. But under the layer of media babble, a solid upward trend of adoption that tracks along with the experiences of businesses as they process the cycle of innovation, failure, adaptation and optimization. So don’t believe the hype. Find out for yourself what social media can do for your marketing.