Sales still an important factor behind brand social media efforts

Aug 31, 2010 by Dirk Singer

Despite well documented examples of brands maintaining Twitter feeds, and using them to respond to customers, customer service is by and large not the biggest motivation behind brands setting up social media profiles.

This is according to social media monitoring service Alterian (via MarketingProfs) which found that fairly standard marketing objectives lay behind branded social media efforts.

“Acquiring new customers”…or rather plain old sales was the number one objective for 30.1%, followed by awareness raising (26.5%), and using it as a communications channel for existing customers (24%). However customer services as such was the main social media objective for only 1.2% of marketers surveyed.

It’s worth noting that respondents (who were based in the US) were asked to give one answer, so this isn’t the same as saying that said marketers don’t consider customer services via social media to be important. Still – the fact that many brands still see everything through an advertising prism, and often get it wrong as a result, can be seen in the fact that sales was the most popular answer.

At the same time another US survey has come out, this time via publisher Colloquy and the Direct Marketer Association. This one found that among marketers who do see social media as a customer services channel, the average social media spend was $88k compared to $53k who were motivated by brand awareness and $50k by those who wanted sales.

Not withstanding the fact that this second survey was done by email and involved respondents filling out 17 questions, you do have to ask…is that it?! $50k (£33k) spend to use social media as a way to get new customers? Unfortunately that stat confirms that marketers taking the social media sales route are sometimes also the ones who understand the least about the area.