Many of the marketers on the web today have already stepped into the social marketing community, and have begun developing their presences on social networks. Social marketing has worked quite well for most marketers, but it seems that all attention is being focused toward companies like Facebook and Twitter. That is, people spend a majority of their social marketing efforts dealing with these social networks, hearing from across the web that they bring in the best performance that can be found. However, without giving the other companies much of a chance, how is it that marketers can really be sure that they are making the right decision at all? A new survey shows that many marketers are giving other social networks a chance, with plans to expand their social reach.
The survey comes from Nectar Online Media, a social commerce software company, along with the Social Media Clubs, a non-profit organization with the main goal of educating the public with information regarding today’s newest technologies. The respondents of the survey are made up of 400 marketers that manage social media campaigns.
A chart from the reporting of the survey results shows that Facebook remains the number one choice, as 93% of the respondents confessed to having a Page on the network. However, in the coming year, just over half of respondents said they plan to increase the amount of marketing they do on Facebook. Some said that this was because of increased restrictions that Facebook has put on businesses when trying to make the most out of the network’s marketing tools.
As for Twitter, about 81% of respondents said that they are on the network for marketing purposes. According to the results, which do not exactly make perfect sense, about 87% of these respondents Tweet marketing content on Twitter, but only 76% of these respondents have actual Twitter accounts for their brands or businesses. No matter what this means, about 61% of respondents said that they will be increasing their efforts on Twitter for the year to come.
The real interesting numbers come from networks like YouTube. Apparently, more respondents plan to use the network for marketing in the coming year than there are marketers that already use it. As of now, only about 57% of marketers use the network for marketing, but in the year ahead, over 60% of marketers plan for YouTube campaigns.
Another case similar to this is that of Pinterest. In the chart, that shows the difference between current efforts on social networks, and plans for the future, Pinterest is not even included. This is because only about 36% of marketers currently use the network. However, in the year ahead, 60% said they would like to increase the amount of effort they put forth on the site. The excitement about Pinterest seems to be growing rapidly, as this is the largest increase in interest of all those reported.
So, although Facebook and Twitter are expected to remain steadily at the top, networks like Pinterest and YouTube are offering to marketers reason to be excited, and attention is being redirected.
