Facebook: 76 Percent of marketers say social Media is important to brands

By SiliconIndia | Friday, June 1, 2012

Bangalore: Facebook has released two blueprints to engage businesses more in social media. Facebook commissioned a study which says that firms want to be more social, but are facing trouble in the execution.

Facebook sponsored Forrester Consulting for a study last year which showed that marketers believe social media is vital but many are not implementing it. Therefore the social networking giant has launched a series of white papers called "Social Business Blueprints" to share best practices.

According to the study, 76 percent of marketers surveyed said that to build a brand social media is important and 72 percent agreed that Social media is vital for customer loyalty. Additionally, 59 percent believed that companies that don't fully adopt social media will not survive in the future. 71 percent of marketing leaders agreed that social media helps in gaining competitive advantage, and merely 33 percent currently have a long-term strategy for becoming a social business. This study was an online survey of 101 VP- and C-level marketers. 12 CEOs, CMOs, and VPs of marketing were also interviewed.

Some fundamental concepts outlined by Facebook:

Social influence: Making a strategy that supports fans to influence their friends. In a world of increasing information, people consult their friends for advice on how to spend their time, energy, and money.

Social media: Social media can be used to share brand messages and encourage people to engage and share them.

Social marketing: Using social media and technology into the heart of planning your marketing strategy and delivering the brand experience.

Social business: Companies which use social media and technology to improve the core businesses processes like product development, customer service, market research, retail and merchandising.

A Facebook spokesperson was quoted saying Evolving a business for the connected world can be challenging, as reported by ZDNet. He further added Many marketers have told us that they know social is important, but they don't know how it affects the way they run their business and build brands. To help businesses start building their long-term social strategy, the brand blueprint walks through six steps to build a connected brand and the organization blueprint highlights examples for how social can impact every customer-facing part of your organization and the leadership it will require to execute across your organization.