Social on the Move

AMAS in partnership with the Marketing Insitute of Ireland have recently published an extensive study of how online marketing is used in Ireland. Over 400 Irish marketeers participated and the results show that social media is on the move up in terms of the preferred methods of online marketing used. Social media marketing is not around that long but yet it is already positioned as the second most preferred format of online marketing. Email marketing remains the most popular. However, Social Media marketing comes in second ahead of search engine marketing, search engine optimisation and banner advertising.

Marketeers did have concerns about the amount of extra time that social media marketing will increase their workload, how they can manage their reputation online and how they can keep up with all the latest trends in social media marketing. But they also saw huge opportunities in social media marketing especially due to it’s cost effectiveness and it’s ability to help them understand their customers. They indicated they used it for a variety of reasons.

There is no doubt the importance of social media marketing now in the marketing mix. No wonder that spend on social media marketing in the US is expected to nearly double this year as a percentage of total marketing spend (from 5.6% to 9.8% of total marketing spend)