Yes, Social Has Impact

I’m fairly active on social, not as active as many, but at the 50 plus age range, I’m fairly certain I’d rank in the top tier. Soshable is one of the feeds I follow, mainly because I love seeing “Hire Us!” in the menu bar. I mean really, it’s why we’re all out there.

Naturally, I hate to miss a five (5), and “5 Quick Social Media Stats” caught my attention. I’m going to provide you the data and then give you some feedback, as I love the data. But… (and it’s a big but) I’d really like to know exactly where they found this group of marketers.

The Impact of Social Media, five, count’em five. The marketers indicate:

• 84% – Social Media users (to some degree)
• 83% – Social Media is essential to their business
• 59% – Social Media interactive 6+ hours
• 53% – Social Media is NOT measured
• 52% – have difficulty in Social Media Measurement

As a digital agency, this is good news, both in usage and in measurement, but this is not what we see in the marketplace. I’d suggest that the stats were taken from social marketers and gathered off of Twitter (just kidding here), but certainly, this information has been taken from a group already using social.

What we see is quite different. Prospective clients are NOT engaged, most haven’t mastered email as of yet, never mind social. My point is that most marketers are not actively social (at least those over 40) and many business executives and business owners don’t have their Twitter on. My point, I’d be guessing Mark Zuckerberg provided the candidates for this study (yes, laugh here). We don’t see the average marketer spending 6+ hours a week on social, it’s just not happening, at least not yet.

Impact? You bet, social is everywhere and the infographic provided should be giving you lots to think about, but don’t be fooled here. It’s my estimate that the majority of mid-sized business marketers are NOT representative of the stats above.

The takeaway is YES, social has impact and NO, we’ve not reached the pinnacle, we are still in the exploratory phase. It seems many are in training, not ready for the big fight.

Michael Bickerton, Raven5 Ltd, Oakville, Ontario November 2013

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