New research from YouGov’s Social media: bringing people together? report indicates that while marketers regard social media as important, a sizable percentage do not have enough time to dedicate to it.
The study was conducted among 508 senior marketing decision makers in Great Britain.
Among those who work for companies that do not have an employee dedicated to social media, over half (53%) spend an hour or less per week on their business’s social media presence.
Just 5% say their business dedicates between 5 and 10 hours to social media, while only 2% say that it is more than 10 hours.
This is despite the importance marketers place on social media. Almost half (48%) of senior marketing decision-makers believe that the importance placed on social media for business marketing purposes is about right, while around a third (36%) think that it’s overrated and 10% believe that it’s not rated highly enough. In addition, more than half (52%) say it’s a big or a top priority for their business.
A lack of time, or dedicated social media employee helps to explain why brands often do not tailor their messages to particular platforms. Two thirds (36%) say they don’t have time to do this, 14% say they do not know how to tailor content to different platforms. Added to this, 29% say they don’t see the purpose in tailoring, and 22% have tried previously but didn’t see a benefit.
Our study suggests that while there is acceptance and awareness of the importance of social media to business need, recruitment of those specialist experts hasn’t quite kept pace with this. Added to this, there is also the issue of tailoring messages. When businesses do get the time to dedicate to social media, our data hints that they are not necessarily getting what they can out of it.
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