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Businesses must embrace social media, says DMA
Marketing News |
19/07/2010
Businesses cannot afford to ignore the marketing potential of social media as they bid to better interact with the consumer, it has been claimed.
Tristan Garrick, public relations manager for the Direct Marketing Association, said that the platform has become "phenomenally important" within the advertising sector over the last couple of years.
He claimed that the channel enables brands to form a relationship with the consumer in a completely different way to traditional marketing methods.
"With push media, you have wide-scatter shot top brand advertising, whereas with social media marketing, it's just a great opportunity for consumers to take the brand in their own hands, pick it apart, play around with it," Mr Garrick said.
Consumers can seek references and referrals, pulling information out of social media rather than simply digesting biased material promoted by the brand itself, he noted.
Mr Garrick claimed that 71 per cent of retail websites visited by social media consumers generate sales, compared to just seven per cent of those arrived at via organic search techniques.
The implication of this is that would-be customers are using social networking sites to assess brand quality before they commit to a purchase.
Businesses do need to take something of a leap of faith, given that they are placing brand equity into the hands of their customers, Mr Garrick stated.
"What social media does is empower people to start up discussions and actually be their own media channel, and therefore broadcast their opinions to a sizable audience," he added.
However, Mr Garrick suggested that the potential benefits in terms of revenue generation tend to outweigh the inherent risks.
Last week, the Chartered Institute of Marketing reported that small businesses in the UK remained committed to advertising investment during the recession.
The organisation found that such companies were less likely than their larger counterparts to slash spending during times of economic difficulty.
Posted by Jon Aspinell
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