The growth in the use of Facebook over the past twelve months, has pushed Twitter into second place as the most used social media option in 2011, according to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael Stelzner. The top social media tools are Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and blogs.
90% of marketers indicate that social media is important in their business and multi media solutions are important with 77% of marketers planning to increase their use of YouTube and video marketing in 2011.
Having blogged jkaonline, blogged (pro.manchester ceo) and twittered (@jkaonline) and now fully LinkedIn, I am not sure I fully grasp FaceBook as yet but am working on it. According to Social Media Examiner the top ten Facebook pages are Red Bull, Burt’s Bees, Uno, Chicago Grill, LiveScribe, Toy Story, Coca Cola, Oreo, Jones Soda, the Twilight Saga and the Travel Channel.
In the UK I have had a look at Cuprinol but haven’t found a great sense of excitement so far.
Social media marketing takes a lot of time: The majority of marketers (58%) are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and more than a third (34%) invest 11 or more hours weekly.
Key benefits include, greater exposure, increased traffic, improved search rankings, new business, more leads, improved sales and above all cost effectiveness.
Alternative media options include, SEO, E-mail marketing and events marketing with more limited use of on line advertising, PR, webinars, sponsorship, direct mail, display ads, radio and TV. Strangely PPC is not referenced.
Commonly asked questions include : How do I measure the effect of social media marketing on my business? How do I integrate and manage all of my social media marketing activities? How often should I update? The report outlines the top ten questions and deals with the information response.
In pro.manchester we are getting pretty excited about our SME club due to be launched later this year and the development of the e-commerce and social media response team to assist with the SME clinics and surgeries we are planning to run.
If you are a specialist in Social Media or e-commerce marketing and would like to be part of this marketing programme for Greater Manchester and the North West contact : Rachel Tetlow for more information.
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The views expressed are my own and in no way reflect pro.manchester policy. In no way should the comments be considered as investment advice or guidelines or reflect political bias. UK Economics news and analysis : no politics, no dogma, no polemics, just facts. JKA is a visiting professor at MMU Business School, an economist and specialist in Corporate Strategy, educated at LSE, London Business School with a PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University.
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