Tech Affect » MarketingSherpa

Majority of Marketers Believe No Experience Needed to be a Social Media Expert? Yeah, Right…

Yasmin Ben-Dror — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:13:43 +0000

Just to add to Sandra’s great blog on May 15th on “5 Tips on Finding the Right Social Media Advisor or Agency for Your Company”, MarketingSherpa posted a chart on this: “Majority of Marketers Believe No Experience is Needed to be a Social Media Expert”

I have to provide you with the full summary – its short, but so good – here goes:

You may have spent a lifetime watching hours of television on a daily basis and being exposed to an infinite number of commercials in the process but, based on that, would you consider yourself knowledgeable about producing a TV commercial? Of course you wouldn’t.

So why would two-thirds of marketers who work for “organizations that have not used any form of social media marketing or PR”, consider themselves knowledgeable on the subject? Does creating a profile on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter, or reading and commenting on blogs qualify you to be the social media marketing expert in your company?

Clearly, there is a disconnect between personal exposure and professional ability that is unique to social media. And this disconnect is one of the most critical dangers to the successful adoption of social media as a marketing strategy.

This was confirmed in MarketingSherpa’s Social Media Marketing and PR study where we found that the “lack of knowledgeable staff” was the most significant barrier to social media adoption. When making the initial jump into social media, many organizations start by delegating responsibility to the first staff person they find with a profile on Facebook or LinkedIn since very few people have any level of practical experience in this new strategy. The result is usually a marketing program pre-destined to failure.

A better approach to adopting this strategy is to seek the advice of an agency or consultant specializing in social media if no one within your organization has proven experience. These experts understand what works and what doesn’t in social media. They can help you plan an effective strategy, train your internal resources and supplement your staff with the specialized skills needed to execute social media programs successfully. When it comes to social media marketing, an investment in expertise will insure a rapid return.

And this is exactly what Affect does…so don’t do it on your own, come to us and we’ll help you work out your best social media strategy.

Pointers for Your Marketing in ’09

Yasmin Ben-Dror — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:29:26 +0000

Starting off the new year, here are some great reports from Marketing Sherpa for keeping afloat in these turbulent times. Take a read. There are some great pointers and new ideas:

– How To Defend Your Marketing Budget, Part II: Meeting Tips + Challenging Scenarios
– Special Report: Marketing During an Economic Downturn – New Data & Key Insights
– Special Report: Marketing During a Downturn, Part 2: 24 Real-Life Strategies Marketers Are Using to Handle the Slump
– New Research from Sherpa: 1,763 Marketers Reveal Top Strategies for Email in Economic Downturn

I hope they prove to be useful to you. Good Luck for ’09!

MarketingSherpa’s Chart of the Week

Yasmin Ben-Dror — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:41:51 +0000

This is new from MarketingSherpa. This neat little “Chart of the Week” pops into my inbox every Tuesday. Their goal is to bring you something useful and interesting in only 2 minutes by presenting a bite-sized piece of their research and lessons learned from it.

Just to give you an idea of topics, here are some charts that they have sent out recently that I found interesting:
- Why You Must Pay More Attention to Your ‘About Us’ Page . Open access until July 3rd
- Should Tech Marketers Hide Prices? (access passed)
- Tech Buyers Don’t Always Tell the Truth on Registration Forms (access passed)
- Display Ads Do Work — And They’re Getting Better (access passed)

If you haven’t subscribed to this yet, I recommend it.
Here’s the link to subscribe