An extensive survey of marketing professionals’ social media use confirms what most of us feel in our bones: that although Facebook is still king, the subjects are a bit uneasy.
To put it more plainly, almost all marketers use Facebook and an overwhelming majority pick it as their most important social media channel, but more than half aren’t sure that their Facebook efforts are effective.
That disconnect between usage and satisfaction is one of the most interesting findings in Social Media Examiner’s sixth annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report released this week.
The report, drawn from survey responses of 2,887 people over nine days in January, is not science, but it’s a useful snapshot of how marketing professionals are thinking. You can download the free report here.
Do you agree with this statement? My Facebook marketing is effective (Source: Social Media Examiner)
The ambivalence about Facebook isn’t surprising, given the widely reported reduction in organic reach for posts by Facebook pages. Those reports only gained momentum as the year progressed, but in January 43% of marketers surveyed agreed with the statement: “My Facebook marketing is effective.” Only 9% strongly agreed.
The 43% represents an increase of six percentage points since the same question was asked in the 2013 survey, but as the report states: most marketers either don’t know or indicated that their Facebook marketing is NOT working.”
Business-to-Consumer marketers had more faith, with 50% agreeing or strongly agreeing that Facebook marketing is effective; B2B marketers came in at 34%. And larger businesses were also more bullish; 52% of businesses with 1,000 or more employees agreed with the statement, compared to only 34% of the self-employed.
Of course, as the unquestioned social media leader — with 1.28 billion active users to court — Facebook is the big target on the block. It should be noted that that question wasn’t posed about any of the other networks. And when asked the most important social platform for marketing, 54% picked Facebook with second- and third-place LinkedIn and Twitter far back at 17% and 12%, respectively.
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