Marketers Regret Not Investing Enough Time in Social Efforts

While most marketers understand the mechanism of social engagement and the need to provide an ongoing, constant stream of content and interaction, a lot of them regret lacking the time and effort to put their understanding and plans into action. According to new research from R2integrated, marketers asked to analyze their social activity over the past year feel they could have done a better job and are frustrated by the lack of time, resources and direction when it comes to social media activities.

A little under 38% of 296 marketing professionals surveyed by marketing agency R2integrated identified their single biggest mistake this year with regard to social media as not allocating the activity enough time and resources.

“One possible reason for this conundrum may stem from companies trying to be all things to all people in all places, which is simply a time and resource impossibility for programmatic social media marketing,” said Matt Goddard, CEO, R2integrated. “By optimizing scale and relevance within their social media programs, marketers can better devise and execute on activities that are necessary for effective social media marketing, such as strategy development, headcount allocation, content creation and so on.”

30% of respondents also think their social media campaigns would have had better results if they had had a strategy in place and another 22% say definite goals and objectives would have helped them perform better. They however fail to realize that a large part of their existing marketing activity, from PR to direct marketing and TV ads can be easily repurposed and used on social media sites.

When asked to make forecasts for 2011, they see a frustrating year ahead, as 45% anticipate the same challenges of lacking time and resources, made worse by the need to demonstrate ROI predicted by 33% of them.