Studying the impact of innovation on business and society

The State of Social Marketing 2012

The following report is brought to you by the Pivot Conference taking place in New York on October 15-16, 2012. You can download a full copy of the report for free by clicking here.

At the end of 2011, Social marketing stands at a profound crossroads. Some organizations are finally embracing the importance of social networks and, as a result, increasing investments in creative engagement, marketing, and service programs. Others see the future value, but lag behind in execution. At the vanguard, Social Businesses drive a virtuous cycle of discovery: Their successes in Social marketing lead to new data, which lead to insights, which lead to new and more effective programs as well as the business systems and processes necessary to improve internal and external collaboration.

In 2012, social media marketing, driven by these innovations, will only continue to mature. Bottom-up learning about what really works in Social will be essential for this expansion. Research conducted by IBM in 2011, for instance, revealed a gap between consumer expectations toward the businesses they support in social media, and executive assumptions about what these consumers wanted. This “Perception Gap,” as defined by the IBM study, demonstrates the importance of bottoms-up, informed social marketing programs, as opposed to the traditional top-down strategies tied to the usual monologue-marketing channels.

Not all customers are created equal. So, businesses are learning that there must be more than one approach to reaching and engaging customers through the emerging Social channels.

This year, at the second annual Pivot Conference, we explored the evolving landscape for consumerism as colored by the emergence of Social Consumers. Brands, agencies, academics and thinkers examined how Social Consumers find and share information, how they influence and are influenced by engagement, and also how they make decisions. In the end, it was clear that the Social Consumer is fundamentally unlike a traditional consumer and, as such, compels brands to rethink sales, service, and marketing strategies across social, broadcast, and mobile networks. At stake is a business’ relevance to the Social Construct, which is the new key to consumer connection and success. For brands today, if you don’t establish this connection, Social Consumers will just connect themselves and collaborate without you.

To help brands more effectively plan for improving customer engagement and experiences in 2012 and beyond, the Pivot team, along with The Hudson Group, surveyed 181 brand managers, agency professionals, and experts. Their answers paint a picture for how businesses intend to reach their Social Consumers. Additionally, the results serve as a benchmark as you, the Social Business leader, assemble your strategies over the next year.

The Rise of the Social Consumer

Who is this Social Consumer and how does he or she differ from traditional counterparts? Let’s start with a working definition. A Social Consumer is someone who first goes to their social networks of relevance to learn about products and services. Though somewhat influenced by their overall social graphs, Social Consumers emphasize the input of those who define their interest graph – like-minded individuals on any given subject who share common interests and experiences with them. In this way, Social Consumers evaluate the shared experiences of those they trust, and expect businesses to respond to their socialized questions. As a consequence, Social Consumers don’t follow a linear approach through the classic ‘interest to intent’ funnel during their decision making process. Rather, they follow an elliptical pattern where their next steps are inspired by the insights of others, and their experiences are, in turn, fed back into the cycle to inform the decisions of others.

Reprinted from The End of Business as Usual, Chapter 14

In the Pivot study, we asked if participants had a clear picture of who their Social Consumer is. An astounding 77 percent said yes.

Comparing these results to the working definition presented above, which survey participants did not review in advance, as well as the Perception Gap produced by IBM, I wonder how these numbers would change if the question was asked now. Given the results noted below, it appears that respondents believe they know who their Social Consumers are, even though they may not have actually engaged them in a detailed conversation.

When the Pivot team explored specifically if respondent organizations asked Social Consumers what they expect from engagement, most responded, “No.” This is intriguing because we have 77 percent of organizations who say they know what their Social Consumers want, but 53 percent haven’t really asked. They do not—cannot—really know how to deliver value in social and mobile networks, thus pointing to IBM’s Perception Gap. On the other hand, 35 percent did note that they asked Social Consumers about their expectations. Our belief is that these organizations will most likely outperform organizations that did not ask.

Businesses shared their perspectives on the benefits and customer expectations of social engagement in their responses to the survey. The results cover a wide spectrum of sales, service, and marketing benefits, with customer service, insight to make decisions, and the ability to learn about new products as the top three entries. Deals and rewards came in fourth and fifth respectively. Each of the benefits is important, however. Offering exclusive content, the ability to provide feedback for improvement and social commerce add to the complexity of reaching and engaging the varying needs of social consumers. We think marketers should look here at the whole tapestry, more than the individual strands.

When asked about the gender of the Social Consumer, respondents believe their Social Consumers are equally divided between male and female. This is result is intriguing for many reasons, not least of which is the findings in previous studies that females skew higher across popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as for most social commerce services. Are we seeing the emergence of more men in social networks? Perhaps.

As we continue to examine the demographic makeup of Social Consumers, this study indicates they tend to be most commonly in their 30s and 40s. But there are strong showings of Social Consumers distributed across those 26-30, 46-50 and also 51-55. Clearly, social is no longer the province of just the young.

The household incomes of Social Consumers are scattered across the board. But in aggregate, it appears that Social Consumers lean toward desirable income levels. Median income from the study results is just over $60,000.

When asked which networks are frequented by their Social Consumers, participants stated that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn were numbers one, two and three respectively. Facebook and Twitter are viewed as essentially ubiquitous. At the time of this survey, Google+ hadn’t yet opened up brand pages, but as of November 2011, businesses can develop official brand presences. Yet, even without the ability to do so during the survey process, businesses recognized the important role Google+ plays in the lives of their Social Consumers

When it comes to Social Consumers’ increasingly common mobile activity, Facebook and Twitter still maintain the top two spots. Foursquare, though, jumps into the third position ahead of LinkedIn, an indication that geo-location networks continue to rise in popularity.

Pleased To Meet You, I Hope You Get My Game

Gamification is becoming part of social networking, education, and loyalty programs due to its attractiveness to the Social Consumer.

Zynga is currently the overwhelming leader in capturing the time and attention of Social Consumers when it comes to gaming, probably a reflection of Facebook’s current dominance. Intriguing here is that the second most common response is “other,” a sign of the diversity in this arena.

Social professionals don’t see a clearly dominant player amount the many current portable photo networks available for popular smartphone platforms. No option received even 25 percent of the responses. However, Hipstamatic is firmly positioned at the top of the list with almost double the usage of Dailybooth, which currently sits at number two, according to respondents. They seem to be leading a rather open field.

In the world of social and group-based deals, Groupon ranks number one among Social Consumers, but LivingSocial maintains a strong foothold in the number two spot. Facebook Deals was in third, but the service has since been discontinued by Facebook.

“After testing Deals for four months, we’ve decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks,” Facebook told Reuters in a statement published in August 2011, during the time the survey was already in the field.

Engagement is not defined by conversations. Engagement is the act of a consumer and an organization or brand interacting within the consumer’s network of relevance through a combination of conversations, content, or related information. Engagement, and here’s the important part, is then measured by the takeaway value, sentiment, and resulting actions following the interaction.

Brands largely disagree with the belief that conversations in social networks alone drive meaningful business outcomes. The true test, of course, is whether or not outcomes are defined and if they are introduced into engagement as a desired click path. On the flip side of the coin, brands either completely or mostly agree that conversations help with brand lift and relevance responding with 51 percent and 45.5 percent respectively.

There’s notable difference, however, in whether or not brands think their Social Consumers want something of tangible value in exchange for a social connection. 21.6 and 45 percent completely or mostly agree. 27 percent and 6 percent mostly and completely disagree. Our advice: When in doubt, ask.

With all of the fanfare around social media, it would be easy for those living within the new marketing paradigm to assume that social media already was or soon will be mainstream within the organization heading into 2012. However, respondents were divided in their outlook. Just over half believed that social marketing is already mainstream within their organizations and just under half think that social marketing will still be experimental a year from now. This shows where we are in the social revolution: the reality of change is broadly accepted, but norms about fundamental issues still remain elusive. We know we are going to a new place, we just aren’t yet sure exactly where and how fast.

When asked what was preventing the organization from moving beyond experimentation in social marketing, respondents’ reasons were widely distributed. Budget was seen as a challenge, as was the inability to define or measure clear outcomes. We feel that, whatever your personal sense, each of these points is worthy of exploration and definition within the organization. This is the only way to ensure that the needs of Social Consumers do not go unmet. A working strategy and understandable benefits are critical to rallying support across the organization, especially among executives. Defined metrics tied to thoughtful strategies demonstrate progress. Listening combined with research will reveal the need for a cross-functional approach as data always spotlights the varying needs of Social Consumers – beyond marketing.

Confusion reigns today, but conviction lies on the horizon. 2013 is the year a solid set of respondents sees social marketing finally breaking beyond experimentation within the organization. Still, we can see the current uncertainty about the development of social: 15 percent look to 2014 as likely year for corporate breakthrough, another 15 percent see 2015 or later, and a sobering 35 percent still don’t know what to think.

While respondents see social marketing as crossing into the organizational mainstream relatively soon, an overwhelming 89 percent of participants see social marketing as a permanent series of experiments. The takeaway here is that professionals, for the foreseeable future, feel that there is much to learn with regard to the Social Consumer and how to effectively engage and steer positive experiences and outcomes for social marketers. As one area of social moves into the mainstream, it will just open up new areas for experimentation.

The trend in social media budgets is positive. The percentage of respondent companies spending less than 5 percent of budget on social drops by about half between 2011 and 2013 and the percentage spending over 50 percent more than doubles. The sweet spot hovers around 25 percent of budget, rising slightly over the next two years. All this indicates to us is that it remains early days in the development of social in organizations.

Looking ahead to 2012, brands are thinking through goals as they plan next year’s social marketing programs. At the top of the list, at almost 100 percent, is the need to increase sales, which is a reflection of the need for marketers to demonstrate tangible ROI. Consumer engagement, lead generation and brand lift are also atop the list. Among the notable responses from participants, influencing consumer behavior is at just over 60 percent, establishing points of influence at just under 60 percent, and discovering points of relevance shown at 40 percent spotlight how new touchpoints will play a role in driving desirable outcomes and experiences. The overall sense of the responses is a tilt away from “soft” benefits toward harder edged benefits that drive the bottom line.

Surprisingly, improving customer service and support was toward the bottom of the list, but it is promising to see that the research does show that businesses are placing it in the upper half of 2012 planning. We see customer service as one of the potential breakthrough areas for social networks.

Make the Pivot

Here’s the important takeaway: To successfully reach the Social Consumer and ensure that social media extends across the organization, look at this list as a series of steps rather than a hierarchical rank. Thinking through each item will force a more thoughtful approach to reaching Social Consumers and guiding positive experiences and outcomes. Budgets and support are the net benefits of following these action items.

1. Increase understanding of the benefits of the Social Construct within your organization.
2. Develop a clear strategy for social.
3. Define outcomes.
4. Tie strategies and supporting metrics to business objectives.
5. Earn executive buy-in with data, demonstrate the needs of Social Consumers, and show how others are successfully engaging them today.
6. Earn support across departmental functions by showcasing how the varying needs of the Social Consumer are unmet by key roles in the organization.

As you review these data and compare them to your 2012 plans, or if you’re in the planning stages now, remember that benchmarking against peers is only one part of the process. The real opportunity lies among your Social Consumers by identifying their needs, and benchmarking them against your solutions for them and thus your business opportunity.

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+

Order The End of Business as Usual today…

Image Credit: Shutterstock

99 COMMENTS ON THIS POST To “The State of Social Marketing 2012”

  1. Anonymous says:

    Great article as usual, Brian, thanks. A couple of quick comments, there will come a point when the ‘social consumer’ is the ‘normal consumer,’ as the tech/sms literacy of the consumer continues to increase, and younger generations gain spending power as they reach the desired demo by brands. Just like the circa 1989 WordPerfect user manual I keep in my office explains to the reader the difference between a typewriter and desktop pub program, brands must have patience and continue to teach consumers how to use these new tools.

    The second point just strikes me as funny: brands don’t want to spend money on social in uncertain times. yet they’ll continue to throw money at uncertain traditional marketing tools like billboards or other nonsense (at my org I had half the budget for Facebook ads than the trad marketing did to wrap a car in stickers and drive it in parades). Again, though, as the literacy level increases for social media I think it’ll become the new paradigm for brands…wait, didn’t you predict that in Engage ? 😉

  2. Anonymous says:

    I dig the concept of enterprise social business as a series of steps as opposed a hierarchical list of priorities. And there’s no doubt that social will always include a hint of experimentation.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Great article, Brian! Thanks for such insights!

    I find odd that Facebook is used more than Twitter in the mobile segment. Almost any statistics I could make out of my experience as a Social Media marketer would be against that. Anyone care to comment on that?
    Thanks again!

    • briansolis says:

      Hello Ramiro. Mostly, it comes down to size and usage. Facebook has 800 million users compared to Twitter’s 200 million. Of the 800 million, 350 million are active through mobile on Facebook. They’re 2x as engaged as well over desktop users. Many studies show that Likes and comments equate to greater value for brands because they last longer in the social effect whereas Twitter is always fleeting. The stream changes much more quickly requiring a different approach. Hope that helps.

  4. Anonymous says:

    This is one of the best posts I have ever seen on this topic! Sharing everywhere!

  5. JEBworks says:

    Outstanding insights! This outlines the road map going forward. As for the key goals in the second to last graphic of increased sales, I would comment that if the lesser ones like improved customer service, influencing consumer behavior and consumer engagement are met that sales will follow!

  6. Thanks Brian, for a great article on the social consumer. There are quite some learnings to take away from this article – very insightful.

  7. Wasim Ismail says:

    Some intense stats and figures here, one that highlights for
    me, is the increase in marketing budgets for social media. More and more
    business are understating the power of social media, and how it can benefit  their business in building their online
    brand. Many companies are now focusing on social media marketing compared to
    the traditional marketing techniques.

  8. Matthew Lebo says:

    “Experimentation as a permanent part of social” I feel like that’s a bit of a silly question, as most aspects of growing your business require constant experimentation. What was more amazing, was that 11% actually said experimentation was not going to be permanent.  

  9. Judy Mod says:

    Hi Brian.  Would you mind sharing this within the Social Executive Council?  Thanks.  Judy Mod

  10. Thanks for sharing such an amazing explanation through nicely built presentation.
    In an era of constant change, organizations face enormous pressure to optimize performance and maximize social media results. 
    Greetings from Brazil.

  11. Abel Pardo says:

    It’s very interesting the data about budgets and their future increase. Congratulations for the post, Brian.

  12. Patric Kint says:

    Thnx for the great stats. Looking forward to some stats regarding social CRM and/ or Social Business developements and adaptation. My experience is that we are stil in de social marketing phase, meaning setting up FB pages etc and deploying stand alone SM campaigns….it is time to integrate social media  in our (customer facing)business processes and reporting mechanisms..

  13. peter says:

    Thanks for sharing such a awesome post. The marketplace is constantly changing and so program effects must be
    regularly monitored and management must be prepared to rapidly alter
    strategies and tactics of social media marketing.. 

  14. G Lonigro says:

    Great insights and information here. I have a feeling my entire #nyusm class will be drawing from this for our final projects next week! Thank you!

  15. Davide Scialpi says:

    Great article, brian! 

  16. Dipal Raval says:

    Really very informative post.Your data about your budgets and also increase the feature plan.Lots of company are focusing of social media marketing compared to any traditional marketing tactics.

  17. Steve Seager says:

    Wonderful stuff as ever. Thank you. I did have to laugh at the ‘bottoms-up’ social marketing programs though. Was that a typo or Freudian slip on the way many businesses still approach social? 🙂

  18. Krishna De says:

    Thank you Brian for sharing the research and linking to the research report. It is a great reminder to people to make sure that they research and ask their social consumers and clients what they want from engaging with the organisation through social channels rather than ‘believing’ that they know.

  19. Dipal Raval says:

    Thanks for giving such a great explanation. Today most of business are understand  of social media and they can use it, and its really beneficial for business criteria.

  20. Like most of the insights, but right out the gate the people who took the survey contradicted themselves. It is a common mistake because of who is asked about Social or Social business. They say they “Know who their Social Consumer is” but have not asked what they want.  Great so you just contradicted yourself.  I believe until you ask what they want you don’t know your social consumer.  That goes for your external consumers and your internal consumer.  Bet they haven’t thought of asking their employees.  In most cases your employees are buying your products or services too.  The other side of this is “Oh we know what is good for OUR social consumer and never ask and make assumption after assumption after assumption.  Typically within one silo called Marketing.  Ever thought of asking your customer service department? Product designers? Business Partners?

  21. Kevin Wray says:

    I’m a bit skeptical here. This forced dichotomy of social consumers versus regular consumers is silly if you ask me. As a social species, we always have asked friends, neighbors, acquaintances, about “whats a good product to buy”. Facebook and other social networks have just created an operating system around this dynamic and the demographics shown are pretty close to what you would see if you polled sophisticated “wired users”.
    The bigger trend I see is a dissolve of the opaque barriers companies put up between themselves and consumers. A Facebook page contains a permanent record of consumer sentiment and its hard to wish it away. You have to respond and deal with it as a company. This dynamic was captured beautifully in the ClueTrain Manifesto, circa 1999.Brian Solis – you are a smart dude, but you’re wrapping yourself in the mantle of trendy marketing, in my opinion. I remember seeing similar presentations in the late 90s about the rise of the mobile consumer.

  22. Egg-cellent stuff! Seriously though, this is unbelievably well done research.

  23. I cannot thank you enough for this article.  I am a Social Marketer on line for a few years now.  The data you have collected has reinforced my thinking of Social Media.  There are many small businesses who are using it and have grown since then.  People like to be part of a social network these days.  Especially on their phones.  Most of the buying this season was done through the internet.  Big companies need to be social!  If the little guys are making money it is proof of the pudding that they become more social.
    I would like to do business with a large company that had a social marketing site because it makes it a more “trusted” business. 
    Thanks again for this information, I just shared it with many small business marketers I know.  I am sure it will validate their hard work in social networking.
    Donna Merrill

  24. There’s an interesting paradox here, “we have 77 percent of organizations who say they know what their Social Consumers want, but 53 percent haven’t really asked. They do not—cannot—really know how to deliver value in social and mobile networks…”  This implies the only way brands can engage is by asking first, which is silly. Sometimes, if you’re leading the market people don’t even know they want what you have, e.g., the iPad. Asking consumer what they want is fine, though it’s no indicator of marketing success.

    • kevin brothers says:

      I disagree.  Asking is a great indicator of marketing success as it identifies want, need and most importantly, consumer intent. 

  25. What a fantastic article.  Brian, your information is the absolute BEST out there.  I work with nonprofits, and they’re generally not that good at thinking about things as a zero-based game.  But we’ve got to stop with our top-down approach, where all we do is add on a little bit of this and that.  We need to be bottom up, starting with the consumer perspective, and this means starting over in terms of resource allocation.

    It’s no wonder that so few nonprofits are raising significant dollars using social mediums. As King
    Lear said to Cordelia:  Nothing will come of nothing.  Most nonprofits have at most next-to-nothing
    budgets; next-to-nothing staffing and next-to-nothing foci when it comes to
    social marketing and engagement strategies.

  26. Paulii says:

    Honestly, I am not so sure that the growth will continue with regards to social media and marketing. I am wondering at what point the MySpace-effect hits, with people outgrowing the medium, or growing tired of the “engagement” because of the lack of real value.

    Time will tell,  but I have a sneaky suspicion that in 5 years we are going to look back and wonder how we could have over-reacted to all of this so completely.

    Don’t misunderstand, I think social media as it relates to marketing is fascinating, but just as people have learned to ignore banner, radio, tv, and print ads, engagement may become that same thing, as most companies will not sustain real engagement. American consumers are growing weary, or at least a good portion are.

  27. Anonymous says:

    50.8% of respondents think social marketing is or already
    will be mainstream in their organization by 2012. The other 49.2% think it will
    become mainstream in 2012. The future is social, and everyone agrees it will be
    here soon, if it’s not already. It doesn’t seem like there’s much doubt, except
    maybe for when it will have taken over completely. Companies would have to be
    crazy not to start transitioning now.

  28. This is a very useful article Brian, thanks! I won’t link or keyword drop, but our startup is solely based on social media marketing and analytics, so if anyone is interested, click on our incentiBox avatar/logo next to this comment and enjoy! Happy Holidays!

  29. Daniel says:

    Great article. I think a lot of companies must realize that it takes
    time to build trust on social networking sites. It takes time to build a community. I am
    grateful that more and more businesses are realizing the importance of
    having a successful social media plan.

  30. Kerry Carter says:

    Thanks a lot for this post, it was very informative and gives direct action items that can drive true social engagement by better understanding your audience.

  31. Layman says:

    I find the difference in the responses to questions on Social consumer benefits Vs Key goals quite interesting and throw in the responses to what will trigger companies to move beyond experimentation in social media and its a bit of a heady cocktail. The top Social consumer benefits are pointing essentially to customer satisfaction and being more relevant to them through insight, decisions or development. These are more medium term goals, however as has always been the case we are measured more on increased sales and lead gen which are so short term (quarterly in my case). It is thus upto the marketers to take the organization beyond experimentation and get that invaluable RoI measurements right, not only the “what” but the timeframe of measurement (more than 3 months would be nice). What I find is that the RoI for digital are all good for marketing, we all get that it is all social, I get pats on the back from my colleagues and my director of marketing, but if I was only paid a penny for the number of times that my senior sales VP’s roll thier eyes when I mention facebook or social….

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join Our Mailing List

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Stay Connected