FreshNetworks Blog

A new report out this week suggests that the biggest hindrance in the adoption of social media is a lack of knowledge. The statistics, from MarketingSherpa, look at the barriers that organisations cite as having stopped them from adopting social media marketing techniques in their firm.

Of the 1,886 firms interviewed who had not embraced social media as a marketing tool, 46% cited a lack of knowledgeable staff as being a significant reason for this. The second most popular response was an inability to measure ROI, with 43% of firms claiming that this was preventing them from adopting social media marketing.

That these two reasons are cited by firms are not a surprise to us at FreshNetworks. We know that clients sometimes need support getting up to speed with the latest changes and developments in social media and how it can help marketing. This isn’t surprising. Things are changing quickly in social media, as we’ve seen in the UK over the last two weeks where a number of popular TV and radio figures have started using Twitter as a part of their shows, thus propelling it into the mainstream. It can be difficult for firms who are busy focusing on their own plans, products and direction to step back and take in the changes as they are happening. Even more so in the current economic climate.

ROI is also a serious issue for marketers, again even more so now when they need to maximise the impact of every piece of spending. There is a lot of discussion of measurement in social media. At one end of the spectrum are people who think that measuring web traffic and statistics gives you a real insight into what people are doing in social media. At the other end are those who think that a firm should be more business-focused, establish a set of objectives for their use of social media and then measure against these. We tend to think that a mix of the two is the best solution. No business should embark on a social media marketing plan without some very clear business objectives in mind. One of our clients wants to increase repeat purchase, for example; another wants to create a target number of new ideas for their product team. Alongside these business objectives are a set of community measures and metrics that make sure we’re on track to achieve what we want.

So, it’s not a surprise that lack of knowledge and lack of clarity of ROI are the two biggest stumbling blocks for firms embarking on social media marketing. But they really shouldn’t be.

And if you’re one of these firms that’s thinking about adopting social media marketing, we’re here to help. We’ve got a wealth of articles, reading, case studies and posts on both topics so take a look and see if we can help.

• Worried you don’t know enough about social media? Check out our articles on social media and online communities. You might also like our Social Media Beginners series and our regular Social Media Diary.
• Not sure about ROI? Our Social Media Diary will probably help too. As might our posts on measurement and ROI.

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Some more reading

• What Now? Build Your Brand. (altitudebranding.com)
• Stop Talking, Start Doing (mediabullseye.com)
• 4 of 10 Social Media Commandments: Quality to Preference (kylelacy.com)
• Some reasons for optimism (oxyfish.com)
• Business media: trends for 2009 (businessmedia.co.uk)