Sprout Social shared a report on the social media marketing challenges marketers face. Sprout Social, a favorite tool of ours, knows whereof they speak when it comes to social media. They supply tools and data analysis for tens of thousands of companies and individuals. Their report is based on interviews with 1,011 consumers and 1,018 marketers.
So what did they find out?
Silos and support
About a third of marketers named getting resources and support for social media among their top challenges. Sprout pointed out that most of the respondents weren’t sharing their data very thoroughly within their organizations. About two thirds shared with sales teams, but percentages dropped sharply after that. 28% shared with HR, and 20% or fewer shared with e-commerce teams, brand, and product development divisions.
The information silos created in this way are probably a big part of the lack of support social media teams identify. Social media teams were most often teams of one or two people. While business leaders named supporting overall business goals as the primary goal of their organizations’ social media strategy, fewer than half of the people on the social media teams named that as their primary goal. In at least some cases, social media teams are not sharing data with their bosses — and they’re not together on desired outcomes, either.
Sprout figures it would be easier for social media teams to get support if they shared data and aligned it with major business outcomes. Proving the value of social media marketing is easier with evidence that it supports overall organizational goals.
Content creation
Sprout talked with consumers as well as marketers. They found that consumers want to be engaged, entertained, and educated. Social media connections are an important part of the path to purchase for consumers. Here are the actions consumers said they took in response to brands’ social media:
- Visit the brand’s website or app
- Visit the brand’s physical store
- Talk about that brand with friends/family
- Recommend that brand to friend/family
- Buy from that brand over another
- Draw inspiration from that brand
- Increase spending with that brand
- Engage with that brand on social media
Solutions
Tools like Sprout Social make social media marketing more efficient and provide analytics data that can help to measure the value social media provides.
Companies like Haden Interactive can assist with strategy and social media content production and management. One-person social media teams can gain value by outsourcing content production and data analysis so they can free up their time for more big-picture tasks. Contact us to find out how we can help.
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