Commonly held beliefs of social media marketing are dispelled by MarketingProfs "State of Social Media Marketing" research study.

1. 7 Myths of Social Media
Marketing 2010
Roy Young, President
MarketingProfs

2. 7 Myths of Social Media Marketing Practice:
1. Marketing departments are hiring social media specialists
2. Social Media communications is free
3. Social Media is just for the kids
4. The bigger the Twitter network the better
5. B2B is totally different from B2C
6. Corporate culture constrains usage and effectiveness
7. Free analytics software is all you need for measurement

3. State of Social Media Marketing
• 5,168 marketing and business
professionals responded to a general
survey on marketing practices
– 64% (3,285) indicated that social media is one of their
job responsibilities

4. Myth #1:
Marketing
departments
are actually
NOT hiring
social media
specialists
• 61% are folks
doing this work in
addition to their
defined role
• And 32% have
social media
responsibilities as
just part of their
job.

5. Myth #2: Social media
marketing is NOT
free. Budget for
social media in terms
of staff time, not
media spend and
Myth #3: Social Media
is NOT just for the
kids.
• High-level executives are
more likely to be active in
social media than not
active, making that time
more costly.
• Young staff may not have
the experience to be
leaders in social spaces.
1.1

6. Myth #4: Large
Twitter
networks are
NOT
necessarily
more valuable
than smaller
networks
• Majority of Twitter
users have far
fewer than 1,000
followers
• Raising the
question “is quality
or quantity more
important when it
comes to Twitter
followers?”
14.6

7. Myth #5: B2B is NOT
significantly
different from B2C
social media
marketing.
• Surprisingly similar
usage rates of “earned
media” among B2B and
B2C organizations.
• Email to house list is the
most commonly used
form of earned media.
• As for social media,
public online
communities are used by
over a third of
companies; blogs by
about a third; and videos
for viral use by about a
fourth of all companies
12.1

8. Myth #6:
Success Requires a Company Culture of Openness
Have Had Success Creating an Online Community Around a Brand
Company Cultural Attribute Agree Disagree
Quick to adopt new media technology 55% 28%
Value open, honest dialogue about marketing 47% 27%
THANK YOU!
Encourages collaboration between marketing
48% 28%
and others
Uses consumer feedback productively to 45% 34%
improve the offering

9. Myth #7: free
analytics
software is
NOT alone
enough.
• Nearly every
measurement
option is mostly
“helpful” (blue and
orange sections of
bar)
• Traditional web
analytics tools
score higher than
new social media
monitoring tools for
robust
measurement
39

10. For information about the research,
go to:
http://bit.ly/8kjHHx
THANK YOU!