state of social media usa snapshot

CORPORATE SOCIAL MEDIA USA SNAPSHOT 2015

Join the community on: @usefulsocial facebook.com/usefulsocialmedia linkd.in/USMgroup

CONTENTSINTRODUCTION .......................................... P. 2

CHAPTER 1: Our respondents .......................................... P. 3

CHAPTER 2: Who’s in charge of social media ........... P. 5

CHAPTER 3: The social media scene in 2014 ............ P. 8

State of Social Media Briefing | Check out our Corporate Social Media Summit New York at www.usefulsocialmedia.com/newyork

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A SNAPSHOT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES

As part of the build up to the 6th Annual Corporate Social Media Summit New York we wanted to gauge some of the top trends both now and in 2015. We reached out to our US social community based in corporate brands to get a snapshot of what’s the current key issues and likely trends

WE ASK THEM:

1. Who’s in charge: Who sets the social media strategy? Which departments are working closely with the social media team?

2. Key issues of 2014: What has been the top issue for the social media team in 2014? What’s been of least importance?

3. A look ahead to 2015: What will be the top priority in 2015? What’s going to be the least important issue in 2015? Are budgets for social media tools increasing or decreasing in 2015?

The insight might not be as in-depth as our State of Corporate Social Media Briefings but it does allow us to get a quick temperature reading of social media in the US.

http://1.usefulsocialmedia.com/LP=108



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SOME KEY FINDINGS:

1. Marcomms still presides over social media: Over half of our respondents stated that social media strategy is set by a colleague in a either a marketing or communications role. The Chief Marketing Officer is the most likely person to be setting social media strategy in a US corporation, with 18% of respondents stating strategy comes from the CMO.

2. Content is king in 2014: 60% of social media executives state that content creation was their top priority for 2014. This echoes a trend that is found throughout marketing. Content has been a key area of investment in 2014 - with 75% of the broader marketing community planning to increase their content output by at least 15% over the next six months. Does the focus on content within social media teams, then, highlight the extent to which any social media department’s strategy is fundamentally informed by that of their peers in a broader marketing role?

3. Increased customer engagement is a top priority for 2015: Nearly half of executives polled said that the two top issues for 2015 were to differentiate themselves in ever-more crowded marketplaces, and to create deeper, meaningful and long-lasting relationships with their customers. 47% of social media executives state that enhancing customer engagement is top priority in 2015.

Liam DowdMarketing Manager@liamdowd10

http://incitemc.com/year-marketing-numbers-infographic


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CHAPTER 1: OUR RESPONDENTS

This Corporate Social Media USA Snapshot 2015 whitepaper, is based on findings from a survey conducted in October 2014 with the Useful Social Media community based in the USA.

Over 200 executives shared their views, helping us identify key trends both now and for the year ahead.

As with our State of Corporate Social Media Briefing, we focus on the ‘corporate’ social media angle.

All findings in this briefing will be based on the 134 executives that identified themselves as working for ‘brands, end users and corporations’. We make this distinction because research has shown that the agencies, consultants and technology vendors who make up the rest of the space have a somewhat imperfect view as to core corporate trends for the year ahead.

DATA IN CONTEXT

This is the first USM whitepaper that looks exclusively how social media is evolving in the US. As such we’re unable to draw conclusions from a direct year-on-year comparison. However, the data will be compared to relevant findings from the State of Corporate Social Media 2014 report - hopefully enabling us set the scene on where social is, and is heading, for US brands in the year ahead.

FULL DATA SET

One can see the entire data set here

http://incitemc.com/marketer-agency-disconnect-hype-man-helper/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PJSa7euiGyfiMUvoKEsPbrQKZh-g_sGyMXtn0ka_W0k/edit?usp=sharing


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CHAPTER 2: WHO’S IN CHARGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

As is often the case within a business, the seniority and position of the top-level executive tasked with oversight of a particular department gives a lot of information as to the credibility - and function - of that department in the eyes of the business as a whole. To that end the first question we asked our respondents concerned who,within a business, was ultimately responsible for setting social media strategy.

WHO OVERSEES YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY?

Chief Marketing Officer ............................................................................ 18%

Chief Communications Officer .............................................................. 13%

VP of Marketing ............................................................................................. 15%

VP of Digital ..................................................................................................... 5%

Director of Social Media ............................................................................ 17%

Other .................................................................................................................... 32%

From this chart, one can be reasonably confident that social media is still viewed as a largely a marcomms function within large companies. Just over 51% of respondents indicated that their social media strategy is set by an employee residing within the marcomms department. The role that most commonly sets the social media strategy is Chief Marketing Officer at 18%.

32% of respondents had a different experience however. The next most popular home for social within a business was with the PR, and the Customer Intelligence teams - which demonstrates an increasing awareness of the power of social media to give critical insights as to the future of the business, and the needs of the customer base. Due to this being a free-text option responses have not been assigned to any suggested roles to avoid any misplacing of responses.

Interestingly - and maybe worryingly - only 16% of respondents state that their social media strategy is set by a Director of Social Media.


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If social media was maturing along the commonly understood path towards a ‘hub and spoke’ model, one would expect to see a much higher percent of respondents stating that strategy is set by the Director of Social Media. The fact so few social media departments are autonomous to the extent a Social Media Director sets their strategy suggests a certain remaining skepticism or unsureness about the legitimacy of social as a business function in its own right. Of course, the more positive alternative reading is that companies have come to see social as more sensibly a channel for other functions to utilise - that creating an utterly independent social media department would lead to a ‘ghettoisation’ and a siloing of knowledge and expertise that would be ultimately less conducive to the evolution of a ‘more social business’ in the future.

It will be interesting to see which of the two alternatives seems most obvious based on next year’s findings.

WHICH TEAMS DO YOU WORK CLOSELY WITH, WITH REGARDS TO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA EFFORTS?

Communications ............................................................................................ 63%

Marketing .......................................................................................................... 80%

Customer Service ......................................................................................... 34%

Sales ...................................................................................................................... 27%

Data Analytics ................................................................................................. 25%

Product Design / Innovation ................................................................... 21%

Not surprisingly the above chart highlights that the social media team works most closely with marketing (80%), with communications (63%) in second place. This reinforces the assumption made above that social is seen, fundamentally, as a marketing and communications tool within the majority of businesses.

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This seems to be a disappointing finding, if one subscribes to the notion that social can and should have an impact on every area of the business. The numbers above seem to suggest that while the more forward looking American businesses have begun to leverage social for broader purposes, the majority are still either unsure of the benefits, or struggling to adapt... For instance, only 34% say that they work closely with their customer service team. At our Social Media for Customer Service 2014 Summit, Glen Gilmore, one of the Forbes top 50 social media influencers, stated that by 2020 90% of customer service will happen on social media. It is clear many US companies have a long way to go.

This lack of application and adoption of social media into different areas of business is not unique to US companies. In our State of Corporate Social Media 2014 Briefing, respondents stated that marketing (62%) and communications (74%) are critical foci for social media teams. Yet in contrast, only 35% of respondents said the same about customer service; 17% about commerce; and a meagre 8% about product development.

It seems to be the case that marketing and communications currently hold a disproportionate amount of attention of social media teams around the world.

Take your social strategy to the next level:

The Corporate Social Media Summit New York (June, 15-16th 2015) is the only conference to tackle your key priorities in the depth you require. The two tracked event delves into all areas of social business, showcasing best practice discussions and case studies to continue the evolution of corporate social media. To discover the full agenda, and unrivaled speaker line up, click here.



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CHAPTER 3: THE SOCIAL MEDIA SCENE IN 2014

In this section, we look a little more deeply at the current priorities for social media executives in the United States. Considering the findings above, it we reasonable to assume that the top issues will be those related directly to marketing or communications.

Social listening and data analysis

Critical ............... 51%

Important .........43%

Unimportant ....5%

Unrivaled customer experience

Critical ............... 54%


Unimportant ....5%

Content creation

Critical ............... 60%


Unimportant ....4%

Creating a truly multi-channel approach

Critical ............... 52%


Unimportant ....5%

Social media customer service

Critical ............... 37%


Unimportant ....13%

Social media and e-commerce

Critical ............... 26%


Unimportant ....28%

Social media for networking and lead generation

Critical ............... 25%


Unimportant ....29%

Mobile marketing

Critical ............... 27%


Unimportant ....24%

Measurement and ROI

Critical ............... 45%


Unimportant ....8%

Heightening local relevancy

Critical ............... 34%


Unimportant ....19%

Platform developments and updates

Critical ............... 30%


Unimportant ....16%

Social media for regulated industries

Critical ............... 25%


Unimportant ....28%

THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES IN 2014

Embedding social media across the company

Critical ............... 34%


Unimportant ....3%


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As can be seen from the charts, this is most emphatically correct... The top three issues for social media executives are all sensibly categorised as part of the marketing and/or communications function. Content creation comes top - with an enormous 60% of respondents listing it as critical. Second recognises the role of social media executives in creating an unrivaled customer experience - an increasing priority for brands struggling with changing customer journeys and expectations, and a challenge for many departments across a business. The third priority focuses on multi-channel, and recognises the difficulties inherent in creating a unified message to consumers across a rapidly fragmenting series of platforms and channels.

However, not every finding tallies with the impression created thus far.

1. Only 37% of respondents stated that building an integrated, efficient and authentic response to your customer is a critical issue. Considering that, according to a plethora of other research social customer service is an ever more important facet of the social media executive key issue and area of focus in social media - it’s surprising to see that social media executives don’t see it as of high importance.

2. Considering both our own and other research is filled with suggestions that social media’s next step within business is to become adopted across many different departments, it is somewhat disconcerting that only 34% of respondents see integration and embedding of social as of critical importance. This would seem to allude to the fact that the social media department has rather less agency than one would hope, that they are very much a junior partner within businesses - backing up our point from page 6.

3. Only 26% of businesses see using social media as a way of driving business and e-commerce as a critical issue.

http://www.conversocial.com/social-customer-service/introduction#.VIhx_TGsV8E


http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/smms-report-010412finaldraft


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The final two findings are somewhat disconcerting. For social media to be taken seriously by the C-Suite and become part of the core fabric and strategy of brands in the US, it needs to be seen to help drive a business forward. And as CMOs well know, the way to do that is show ROI and an impact on the top line, if not the bottom. The fact that only a quarter of respondents say that this is critically important seems to show a disconnect with the ultimate needs of a company, and again reinforces the belief that a social media department in many companies is a junior group with little sway at board level. It is only when social media executives are able to show that their actions drive business and commerce that we’ll see social become more integrated and ingrained in the strategy of business.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU REVIEW THE SOLUTIONS/TOOL(S) YOU USE?

Continuous basis ........................................................................................... 44%

Monthly ............................................................................................................... 8%

Every 6 months ............................................................................................... 16%

Annually .............................................................................................................. 22%

Less than once a year ................................................................................. 10%

From the above, it seems that ‘best in class’ social media tools and solutions have still not been identified, and that corporate practitioners are still on the lookout for products and services that match their needs.

Nearly half of our respondents are continually reviewing their tools/solutions. This figure can both suggest that current tools don’t fully meet the needs of the corporate world, but can also be introduced to highlight quite how fast paced the change in this space is - and that new tools are constantly needed for the challenges and opportunities appearing on the horizon.


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WHAT’S HAPPENING TO YOUR BUDGET FOR SOCIAL MEDIA SOLUTIONS/TOOLS IN 2015?

Increasing ........................................................................................................... 42%

Decreasing ........................................................................................................ 11%

Staying the same ........................................................................................... 47%

Equally, a significant proportion of our responder-base seem to recognise that their current tools and solutions are not fit for purpose given the expansion of their role and the pace of change in the space. A full 42% plan to increase their budgets here over 2015.

Both of these charts seem to show with some authority that there’s a lot to play for for the service providers - who you’ll be able to meet and learn from at our Summits over the next twelve months.

Of course, the latter chart also seems to have some positive messages for those hoping that social will continue its journey to becoming a critical part of customer experience delivery and business operations.

The fact that a full 42% of respondents plan to increase their budget for social tools, it seems that large companies see value in social, and are allocating more budget to the function in the hope of driving greater results.

Opportunity to learn more:

At The Corporate Social Media Summit New York (June, 15-16th 2015) speakers from the world’s biggest and most exciting social brands will be sharing their insight, and skin-in-the-game experiences, on how to fully leverage social data in the corporate setting. You can join them! Click here to find out more.



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THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES IN 2015

Top priority

Embedding social media across the company ....................................

Enhancing your customer engagement .................................................

Unrivaled customer experience..................................................................

Social media impact measurement ..........................................................

Least Important

Embedding social media across the company ....................................

Social media impact measurement ..........................................................

Unrivaled customer experience..................................................................

Enhancing your customer engagement .................................................

Nearly half of social media executives in the US see enhancing customer engagement as the top priority in 2015. With the amount of ‘noise’ in marketing increasing every day, and with brands facing more and more challenges to cut through that noise and engage their customer base, it’s not surprising that this is such a core focus for social media executives in the year ahead. Social channels are a critical part of any wide-ranging and forward thinking engagement strategy...

More worrying is the fact that only 13% of respondents told us that measuring social’s impact was a top priority for 2015. As mentioned above, for social to continue to grow in influence and credibility within large businesses, executives must be able to show results in a format understood and accepted by the C-suite.

Considering the vast amount of confusion and uncertainty around social media’s impact, one would assume that this would therefore be rather more of an important goal for the social media team within those businesses. However, a huge 45% say impact measurement is their ‘least important issue’. While no-one would dispute that social teams have a diverse and challenging role with several priorities at any one time, it still seems rather blinkered that so many don’t appear to ascribe much importance to determining whether they’re successful or not.

22%

47%

18%

13%

27%

22%

45%

6%

6.15.15www.usefulsocialmedia.com/newyork

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state of social media usa snapshot

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