With two-thirds of marketers using social media, and retailers shifting marketing dollars towards social initiatives, it comes as no surprise that new research from the e-tailing group and PowerReviews shows that brands are more hip to social media than ever before.What is quite remarkable, however, is the extent at which brands and retailers are adopting and implementing social media tools, and their preferred social home — Facebook. According to eMarketer, a combined 99% of surveyed online retailers currently employ (86%) or plan to employ (13%) Facebook Fan Pages.
Similar stats hold true for Twitter too. 65% are already all a-Twitter, with 26% planning to get in on the action as well. If the survey results are to be trusted, nearly all online retailers will have Facebook Fan Pages, and 91% will be using Twitter for status updates by the year 2011.
Data from the “Community and Social Media Study” was gathered between August and September of this year, and shows that retail respondents are also favorable to creating and managing their own blogs, but they’re not as keen to adopt the longer form outlet as readily as they are Facebook or Twitter. In fact, at first glance, it might be a little surprising to find that only 55% of those surveyed have blogs now, but 65% and 86% have Twitter accounts or Fan Pages respectively.
Marry those stats against the fact that retailers still fear losing control of their branding, and you have a bit of a oxymoron. The data shows that retailers are actively adopting social media tools on third-party sites over adding social utilities like a blog, Facebook Connect (43% use today), or forums (27%) to their own sites. But, according to the report, “One of their biggest fears was that customers would abandon their site in favor of one that was more socially engaging.”
Perhaps that conundrum can be rectified by the notion that the study also found that “the primary social media goal … was to increase customer engagement.” Social sites do offer a quick and easy way to reach and engage with a broader customer base. Just look at the New England Patriots Facebook initiatives for a prime example of a big brand opting to add social utility on Facebook instead of their own website.
Interesting enough is that this study’s social media adoption rates closely mirror a recent Mzigna/Babson Executive Education study, but that particular study also found that 84% don’t measure the ROI of their social media programs. Clearly we can expect to see adoption rates continue to rise, but what happens after the Facebook Fan Page, Twitter accounts, and blogs are created still remains somewhat of a mystery.
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