Managing Your Social Presence: A Marketer's Guide for Managing Social Media

Managing Your Social Presence:
A Marketer's Guide for Managing
Social Media

September 25, 2009
Managing Your Social Presence: A Marketer's Guide for Managing Social Media Overview This whitepaper is designed to give marketers an overview and specific tactics for managing their social presence. Direct Message Lab's customers include many Fortune 500 companies and top Internet retailers. We have asked them to share their approach to social media from a strategic standpoint and the day-to-day mechanics of managing their social presence. Their responses have shaped a clear picture of the challenges that companies large and small are attempting to resolve as they navigate their way through social media. In this whitepaper we share many of the results gleaned from these conversations. We also add our perspective on the direction of social media, tools that are available and how to calculate an ROI you can take to your executive management. "Participation in social media is a necessity. This is where our customers are and that means we need to be there." CMO, Fortune 500 Retailer The Growth of Social Media Social Media is rapidly becoming a dominant method of communication. In August of 2009, 77% iof Internet users used a social network . As the graph below indicates, users of all ages are participating in social networks. iiPercent of US Online Adults Who Have Used Social Networks 60%50%40%30%20%10%0%2005 2006 2007 2008 And the amount of time users are spending there is significant. The percentages per week for iiitotal online time dedicated to social networking in August of 2008 were as follows:
Ages 18 to 24 19% Ages 25 to 34 10% Ages 35 to 44 6% Ages 45 to 54 5% The numbers of visitors to social networks is staggering with Facebook counting over 300MM total subscribers and over 100MM active. According to Forrester, Twitter grew 965% year over year and is forecasted to have between 80-100 million users by end of the year. GigaTweet ivcounts the current number of Twitter tweets at 3.8B. However the world of social media encompasses more than just social networking and all elements are growing. Technorati has indexed 133MM blogs since 2002 and this year 346MM people worldwide will read blogs. 65% vof the total worldwide Internet population interacts with widgets. And, membership in online communities has more than doubled in the past three years with more than half of online vicommunity members (54 percent) logging into their community at least once a day. Given these metrics it is no surprise that the vast majority of companies we speak with are using, investigating or at least experimenting with how to maximize the value of social media for their brand - 71% of the brands we speak with expect to be actively participating in social media by viithe end of 2009. Funding will follow this trend. Forrester predicts that social media ad spending viiiwill increase 34% on average over the next 5 years to 3.1B. How Do Brands Weigh the Question of Participation? The potential to reach customers through social media is straightforward. However, brands are struggling with some basic questions about how and where to participate. To understand the brands' approach we asked what were the reasons that they would participate in social media? What Are the Reasons You Would Participate in Social Media?
Need to be where my customers spend their timeAcquire new customersLow cost method of communicating with customersLow cost experimentationKeep pace with my competitionManagement initiativeResponse to customers pushing usDelaying participation as long as possible
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%100% Then, we asked what questions you would you needed to answer before participating. The question generated a large number of fundamental questions that were shared across nearly the entire set of participants. The top questions were:
. What should my strategy be? . How do I generate an ROI? . How do I integrate social media with my corporate marketing? . How do I protect my brand? . Is there a right way to participate in social media, especially blogs? . How do I choose the social networks or locations that are right for my business? . How do I participate in social media with limited resources? . What tools are available for my organization? The ... [download for more]