Social media unworthy of budget?

Seventy-eight percent of marketing professionals polled in Coremetrics’ annual “Face of the New Marketer” survey saw that social media marketing was a way of getting an edge on their competitors. However, just 7.7 percent of their total online marketing spend was allocated to it compared to 33 percent to online advertising and 28 percent on online promotion design and implementation.

“This study echoes many of the qualitative findings that we hear from our customers on a day to day basis—marketers are aware of the impact that social media marketing can have on their overall program, but view it as uncharted territory, not worthy of their budget,” said John Squire, SVP product strategy, GM marketing services at Coremetrics.

“As more and more marketing tools become available, we’ll continue to see a greater divide between perceived importance and resource allocation. The ability to accurately monitor the ROI achieved by new marketing tools will help marketers take that first step toward incorporating new digital marketing programs, as well as rethink the effectiveness of current campaigns.”

The survey found that in the last 12 months:

- 58 percent of respondents have implemented UGC or reviews.

- 31 percent of respondents have started a blog.

- A quarter of respondents have put in place an RSS feed.

Tags: marketing budget, social marketing, social media