Home Enterprise Social Media Consumers are driving corporate brand strategy
January 22, 2010 5 Comments

Consumers are driving corporate brand strategy

Ok, the title may seem a little over the top but it’s true. Over the last 5 years or so, the exponential growth of the social web has suddenly given a voice to just about anyone who wants one.  I wrote about this a few years go but it’s even more true today.  The emergence of technology and the fact that tools like Twitter and Facebook have become mainstream is forcing the enterprise to plan accordingly and consider something new, something they aren’t used to. Consumers. I’m not referring to audience segmentation or identifying a target audience either. I am talking about consumers’ perceptions, point of views, interests, dislikes and likes about their brand.

Take the recent Alterian Annual Survey 2009 (just released yesterday) as an example and it paints a very important picture. Here are some key insights of the study:

  • 40% of respondents anticipated a shift of over a fifth of their budget, with 21% predicting more than a third of their budget will shift towards digital/social channels.
  • 66% of all respondents plan to invest in Social Media Marketing in 2010.
  • 57% of respondents reported a plan to invest in engaging individuals on their websites.
  • 36% of respondents plan to invest in Social Media Monitoring tools.
  • Over half of all respondents (51%) are expending a ‘fair’ or ‘significant’ amount of effort to ensure integration of their communication strategies.
  • 54% of respondents said social media was ‘increasingly important’ to the overall marketing mix, with 14% believing it to be ‘critical for success’.
  • Only 6% of respondents felt ‘extremely prepared’ to take advantage of the new techniques that digital and social media represent with 40% of respondents believing that their staff had either ‘none’ or ‘some – with a plan to invest further’ of the skills necessary to take advantage of new marketing or customer engagement strategies.

What this data tells me is that more organizations are taking social media consumers more serious by listening to what is being said about their brands online and making a strong financial commitment to engage with them.  The data also suggests that most organizations are not ready internally to take on this challenge and it’s quite possible that they may fail. Financial investment is imperative but that’s only half the battle.

Download the full report here (registration required).

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Filed Under: Enterprise Social Media, Social Media
About Michael Brito

Michael Brito is a Senior Vice President of Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital. He helps his clients transform their organizations to be more open, collaborative and socially proficient; with the end result of creating shared value with employees, partners and customers. Prior to Edelman, Michael worked for Intel and Hewlett Packard in various social media marketing roles. Opinions posted here are his own.

Feel free to follow him on Twitter, subscribe to this blog or read some more of his content on Social Business News.

  • GabrielCarrejo

    “The customer is always right”

  • http://www.cmdsonline.com/ Internet Marketing

    It will be very interesting to see how all of those metrics shifts in the next few years. As social networking expands to an even larger audience (baby boomers and above – or rather, how these users will continue to embrace it) during the course of 2010, I'll bet that more than 14% of respondents next year will believe that the social media game is “critical to success.” It is still very much a wide horizon and alien shore for most companies, however as the months and years to continue to march along, we'll start to see more and more dollars and personnel allocated and dedicated toward marketing to the masses. Great post!

  • http://www.mcgrawmarketing.com patmcgraw

    Michael,

    Great post – thanks, as always, for sharing.

    Do you get a sense that there is a shift in more than resources? That last bullet point that states only 6% felt prepared and 40% don't have the expertise in-house seems to support what I have been hearing for the past several months – we know we need to be there, but we don't know how to get there.

    If that's true, I am concerned that 2010 will see a great deal of “Fire. Ready. Aim.” and the results won't be strong enough fast enough. And if that's the case, will these companies have set up a process for learning, modifying and improving or will they panic and start moving dollars back to activities they are more comfortable with based on historical performance?

    If you had to point to a company that has impressed you with its approach to social media – who would it be and why? Maybe that will help some of these companies?

    Best,
    Pat

  • http://digitalmarketing.mehtainc.com/ shreya mehta

    I agree with Michel Brito that social media platform driving a good potential growth in market through consumers and if those corporation who are not follows they may fail in future

  • http://www.leasecar.co.uk http://www.leasecar.co.uk

    Great statistics and wonderful site for research about social media and its effects.