Just a few years ago, social media and mobile marketing were the Wild West of business strategies. On the surface, they offered seemingly ambiguous value and, to the more old-school veterans of branding and advertising, were simply a distraction from the tried-and-true tactics of the pre-social media age.
That’s all changed with the advent of successful Facebook marketing, Twitter branding presences, and the slew of other ways companies can leverage virality and connectedness to market products and communicate with customers.
According to a marketing industry report from the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), 98 percent of companies are now using social media, while 70 percent of marketing executives believe social media has a positive impact on their business.
While social media for large businesses can be a tricky game in the era of prolific hacker attacks, a strong focus on any and all variety of social networks will always result in a healthy conversation no matter what the circumstance. Just ask Burger King, whose twitter account was hacked to hilarious results, and still resulted in the company making headlines for days.
Given that companies have finally woken up to the realization that customers feel a stronger connection to a business and its services by interacting through social media – and not through targeted emails, commercials, or traditional web advertising – more are now planning to outsource around social media content creation and analytics than ever before, according to the SIIA report. In that respect, 60 percent of businesses plan to spend more on sectors like social content creation in the next year, the highest of any spending category in the SIIA survey.
While businesses may finally be unilaterally embracing the age of Twitter, mobile marketing still has a long ways to go. According to the SIIA report, only 25 percent of companies are incorporating mobile marketing. With mobile payments still a free-for-all market, it’s no surprise that businesses may have to take their time in figuring out the intricacies of targeting potential consumers through smartphones.
Watch the SIIA’s webinar that discusses the report and its findings below:
