What’s Stopping You?

We know that many companies are still reluctant to jump into social media, but why? Equation Research provides some interesting insights in their new Marketing Industry Trends report. The report compares the responses from agencies, small companies and larger companies (defined as 500 or more employees) to see how marketing is evolving with the changing consumer/media landscape. It is interesting to see how each of these groups view social media differently, but we’ll focus on the responses from large companies here.

When asked what barriers companies are facing in the adoption of social media, the top reasons are a lack of knowledge about where to begin and that there is no established way to measure effectiveness.

This lack of knowledge is evident in the responses to the next question.  A significant majority of companies are measuring social media effectiveness at only the most basic level – site hits.  Far behind are more meaningful measurements like the quality of the conversations, business leads generated and company buzz.  While it is encouraging to see companies jumping in and testing various methods, the lack of a clear strategy, goals and definition of success will short-circuit strategies before they have a chance to build momentum.

Even with this uncertainty, companies are very optimistic about social media.  Of all the marketing channels, social media is seen as the one with the most promise and the biggest planned increases in budget. 20% of companies are increasing budget for social media initiatives significantly and 43% are increasing it slightly.  This very encouraging, especially since social media is commonly referred to as “unpaid media” because it is about building community and interacting with people directly without expecting them to respond to expensive ads. Where is the budget coming from? Print advertising is seeing the biggest decline in spending, 23% are decreasing slightly and 6% are decreasing significantly.

Applying social media to recruiting has some key measurement advantages because we can track candidates from an initial interaction in a community right through the interview process.

Don’t let these factors stop you. We believe the future of staffing is social and we are implementing a variety of social strategies for clients to help them hire better candidates faster.   We have a variety of educational services available including a detailed social media workshops and a new ebook on the topic due out in the next couple weeks.