NEWS4 February 2010
UK— A new study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) warns of the potential for confusion over the role of research departments in managing social media.
The survey of marketers, conducted for the IAB by research agency Opinion Matters, found that the most common use of social media was to drive awareness and consideration of a brand, as well as engagement and advocacy.
60% of the firms surveyed said they were using social media for research purposes, but when asked where social media fits in their organisation (selecting all answers that applied from a total of six), only 12% chose research, compared to 73% who chose marketing, 33% who chose PR/communications and 20% who chose ‘other’.
The IAB said: “The results confirm that there is still a level of uncertainty surrounding where social media should fit within a business, suggesting that a range of skillsets are required internally for advertisers to make the best use of the discipline.”
It recommends that organisations establish teams to incorporate social media into communications plans, spanning a number of departments.
The study also highlighted that measurement and proving ROI continue to be the biggest challenges faced by marketers seeking to harness social media.
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2 Comments
Arturo Coto
15 years ago
I've seen several studies trying to ID where social media fits in an organization with similar results. Simply put, social media is a vehicle to an audience, which can be used to achieve business objectives. Therefore, it would seem appropriate that each customer centric department should have a social media plan and personnel supporting that plan.
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Paul Hutchings
15 years ago
Social media fits across the whole organisation. Like Arturo says - it is a vehicle to an audience and that audience could be anyone from existing customers to potential customers to employees so it's marketing, PR, HR and IT. Responsibility for it isn't going to be research.
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