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A survey from Association of National Advertisers (ANA), BtoB Magazine and ‘mktg’ indicates that marketers are turning to viral videos and social media marketing more and more, despite continued reservations.



Two-thirds of marketers surveyed said they were using SMM, up from only 20% of marketers in the 2007 survey. The most popular social sites for marketers were Facebook (74%), YouTube (65%), Twitter (63%), and LinkedIn (60%). Only a quarter of marketers were using viral video in 2007; now half are using this tactic. But marketers are concerned about how effective these techniques are:

Despite the growing use of social networks and viral videos, marketers do not think they are using these media in the most effective ways and are still struggling with measurement and media-mix allocation issues. The top concerns for marketers when considering newer media platforms are the inability to prove ROI (45%) and worries about not having metrics to properly allocate the mix of traditional and digital media (43%).

On the other hand, the most effective of the newer media platforms are those which marketers have been doing for longer periods of time and those for which more measurable results are available:

· Search engine marketing (SEM) (65%)

· Own website (59%)

· Search engine optimization (SEO) (55%)

· E-mail marketing (45%)

Naturally, these new efforts have to be paid for. In February, the ANA reported the 77% of marketers were reducing their media budgets this year. However this study indicated that “55% of respondents have shifted funds from their traditional media budget, while 48% shifted funds from other marketing communications budgets. More than one-forth of marketers (26%) created an incremental budget.”

And what’s coming up? Next year, the top new formats (for marketers not currently using them) were blogs (34%), mobile (28%) and social media (23%). But the most money will be going to clients’ websites (26%), SEM (19%) and online display (17%).

Are you still doubting the value of social media?

(The above is from an extract from Marketing Pilgrim, 12/8/09)

Are but a word to the wise. All this lovely new media access to undiscovered countries of audiences only works if you have something to say to they that they actually want to hear. There is a lot of luck involved in sending videos viral. Concentrate in creating content that works for your audience – things they want to know about you, knowledge sharing, opinions, testimonials. It’s bog standard business stuff but it will work more effectively (and create that holy grail of ROI) than trying to create something funny and hoping it will go viral. Slay your social media monsters one video at a time – talk to Little Orchard.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 2:14 pm and is filed under viral video and social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.