Social Media becomes line item for Corporate Marketing budgets 2007
I’m starting to discoverer that Social Media is indeed part of the corporate budget for many companies this coming year. We’re getting contacted from curious Marketers who have a wide degree of understanding and deployment. I’m hearing this from clients, prospects, and other folks that help companies deploy Social Media.
Many companies are contributing a few thousands to tens of thousands per month on developing programs that are designed to reach out and join the online communities. I don’t know in all cases where this budget is coming from, but I do know that old world print advertising dollars are shifting to ‘new’ media, and Social Media is part of this.
2007 to be the year of Online Communities.
8 Comments so far
Leave a reply
I’ll be curious to find out who has these budget dollars. As with Web 1.0 web sites, multiple departments will be involved in using social media; I can see marketing, advertising, sales, and service/support all using social media. It will also be interesting to see what the role of IT will be in these cross-functional applications of social media. (Remember IT departments, Jeremiah?)
For us, the budget for looking in to social media is a necessity for staying on the cutting edge. I don’t think we look at it from a ’spend money on this or on that’ perspective. It has to be done.
It’s certainly coming from the mktg dept, probably directly related to the decrease in print advertising. The bizarre social media gigs I’m being asked to do lately are a testament to how PR firms are embracing social media. The avatar thing I’m now finishing up, is surely the most fun thing I’ve done in a while, and that’s coming from someone how claims to have the best job in the world.
Unfortunately, PR firms usually don’t have a grasp on how to approach social media. (ie Sony’s flog, Walmarts flog, and anything that’s less than transparent).
[…] If you want to know how *I* get jobs and get noticed, and I’d say roughly 15% comes from this blog, 25% comes from people who read my posts on forums, 10% is continued interest in my resume or in work I’ve written on other blogs and 50% is repeat business or WOM from my former or current clients. Of course, the fact that I’ve been involved in social media since 1996 means I’ve met enough people online that I have never had to cold-call anyone. In fact, while I will respond to the occasional job offering, most of my work now comes from people contacting me, and that just points further to the importance of social media in marketing in the coming year. […]
LOTD: December 15th…
Americans are spending a record amount of time, 8 1/2 hours a day, consuming media of any and all sorts according to a Census Bureau report. What I’d like to know is what KIND of media they’re consuming, professional or……
I see it coming out of Marketing Depts, not so much IT depts Denis.
[…] 3) Let go to gain more. The participants of these tools are in charge, typically customers are using these tools long before corporate types do. Thereby, you must participate to be in charge. The more a corporation controls the less effective this will be. 4) Measurement will be important. It will be important to measure the interaction between people. Such terms such as Engagement, Participation, and Attention are rising. Qualitative responses that happen are what is important, not page views or downloads. Teach executives that Web Marketing has left the corporate .com site and has now spread globally and to small islands of conversations. I’ll be on the forefront of this industry need, stay with me, I’ll be your resource. 5) Organize internally. As much focus on internal communication about community should empower a fast, coordinated response. Some employees will be more passionate about one area over others, reward them, and support them. 6) Risk of the unknown. Human conversations are great, you never know where they will turn. For companies that are very logical, planned and methodical there is some elements of the unknown. One thing is for sure, the more you get involved with a conversation in the start, the less risk you’ll have over time. 7) Social Media goes deep in the organization. This tool will change how executives communicate to employees and the public. Support teams will start to engage customers using social media, Middle Management will integrate these tools into program plans, and the rank and file will often be first generation adopters, it’s often bottom up and distributed. Social media is already beginning to be a line item in the 2007 budget.
Social Media goes wide in the organization. It’s not just about Marketing or PR. You can reduce support costs, build better products with engineering in near-real time. Decrease the sales cycle through education, and even reduce recruiting costs and attract the top talent. This web by nature is global, there are more Chinese internet users than all of North America, and for some time, Japanese is a more common language in blogs than English. 9) Social Media spans time. Savvy companies are learning how to use these tools across all phases of the customer life cycle. Awareness, engagement, education, pitch, negotiation, deployment, support, product research, customer feedback, market and competitive intelligence, and then repeat. This public conversation will be archived through as long as the internet is accessible. Google is the memory. 10) Social Media is not magic nor voodoo. Use these tools to open and reach out, use these great web tools to reach and connect to customers, this is Web Strategy, and everyone can contribute. Learn the tools, experiment internally. This is Web Strategy. […]
The New York Times article “Brands for Chattering Masses” from yesterday points to a Jupiter report that predicts that companies will double spending on brand monitoring in 2007 and i am sure a lot of that extra spending will be on social media and monitoring.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/business/yourmoney/17buzz.html?ex=1324011600&en=ded4d63a2054a51c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss