Many marketers are looking upon social media as a powerful tool in winning and building business. Business people are now considering social media networks as the prime source for marketing their products and services based on its popularity. Also, they are not reluctant about investing billions of dollars and valuable time for social media marketing activities. Reports reveal that these efforts end-up in vain at times and do not yield expected results.
New research report from Pitney Bowes Software highlights a few alarming differences between marketer’s and consumer’s viewpoints towards social media. Major Findings of the research are:
- Customer may stop using a brand or product, if they get irritated by the company’s social media behavior
- More than 70% of the marketers focus on social media for promoting their products and services
- 66% of the marketers claim their decision to invest on social media marketing to be right.
- 33% of the interviewed marketers revealed that their investment in social media have produced a positive effect in economic terms.
Facebook still stands the powerful platform for social media marketing. Twitter, Google+, You Tube, etc comes next in the popularity list. But reports show that 78% of the customers are using these channels to keep in touch with friends and family. Only 26% of the customer groups are engaging the social media tools for capturing up-to-date information on companies or brands.
Customers are often happy to receive messages from a respected and well followed brand. 68% of the surveyed customers disclosed that they often welcome online recommendations for products from friends or any other trusted personality. 40% are not interested to receive unsolicited messages from brands they don’t follow. 65% claim that they would like to switch away from a brand that causes inconvenience to them with social media messages. In fact it is clear that social media tools should be handled wisely to harvest benefits in a positive manner. Customers are often attracted by sales campaigns, money-saving vouchers, discounts and new products rather than exhibitions related to organization’s social responsibility.
