Nearly all marketing experts, 97% to be precise, use social media to promote their business, according to the 2013 Social Media Marketing report compiled by Social Media Examiner. The report confirms what is already a popular belief – that marketing professionals are not missing the opportunities social media offers for their marketing strategies.
The survey, which gathered the opinions of over 3,000 marketers, also found that 86% of them considered social media an essential part of their marketing efforts, which is up slightly from 83% last year.
LinkedIn and Facebook appear to be the most popular social networks among marketers. In particular, 49% said that Facebook is the most crucial social media, while 16% admitted that they prefer using LinkedIn. YouTube, on the other hand, is showing very promising results, as 69% of the polled marketers said that they intend to boost its usage this year.
Despite the growing use of social media for marketing purposes, just 26% of marketing experts believe that they can measure the return on investment. At the same time, 89% see the benefits that social media provides them with and 75% register growing traffic, but are unable to track sales.
Over half of those surveyed, who have been using social media for the last three years, said that they have experienced an overall rise in sales. However, the majority of marketing experts are not confident that their Facebook marketing efforts are effective, with only 37% claiming this.