Report: Where Marketers are Focusing in Social Media

According to the Social Media Marketing Report 2011, a significant percentage of marketers are investing a good amount of time each week in social media. 58% reported they were using it for six hours or more each week. 15% reported that they spent more than 20 hours a week on social media. That’s a substantial investment of time for anyone and it’s rather interesting what factors influence the percentages.

The experience factor

How much experience you have with social seems to influence how much time you spend on it each week. 63% of people with three or more years of experience spend more than ten hours a week in social activities. While only 41% of those with one to three years of experience spend as much time.

The age factor

Not surprisingly, age also plays a role in how much time marketers spend on social media. The younger the marketer, the more time spent on social. 20 to 29 year olds spend the most time in comparison to other age groups with 41% spending 11 hours or more weekly. 37% of those in the 30 to 39 year old age group spent the same amount of time weekly on social media.

Tool preferences

What tools marketers use for social media also seem to be influenced by how much social media experience they have. Among those just starting out, Facebook was the number one choice with 84% and Twitter running second at 64%. The study authors note that Twitter actually dropped from 71% in their 2010 study. Facebook and Twitter are also the top two choices for those who’ve been using social media for 12 months or less. With both these groups, LinkedIn and blogs came third and fourth.

Again, Facebook and Twitter are one and two among those marketers with 1-3 years of experience. The percentages were higher with 95% citing Facebook as their number one tool and 91% Twitter. Again, LinkedIn and blogs came in third and forth.

When we look at the numbers for those who’ve been in the game for three or more years, things change a bit. Twitter is number one at 97% followed closely by Facebook at 95% while blogs move up to third (86%), LinkedIn is fourth (84%) and videos are higher in this group with 75% using them.

Types of business

The type of business also plays a role with B2C using Facebook and B2B more focused on LinkedIn and videos. B2B marketers are also investing more time in blogging.

My two cents

The only thing which really surprised me here is that a good number of marketers still don’t seem to see the blog as the hub for their social media activities. Perhaps they’ve established blogs and don’t think they need to put more time into them. Sure it takes more effort to manage a blog then it does to start up a Facebook page, but a blog and its content belong to you and you won’t ever find a competitor advertising on your blog as you might find on Facebook. A blog is the one thing (not including the debatable social channel email) in social media which you own outright and have complete control over. I think that’s something worth considering when planning your social strategy.

Future efforts

How will marketers apportion their social media time moving forward? I’ll take a look at those numbers in part two on Friday.