MNN - Mother Nature Network

Let’s face it, in our always connected digital world your company needs to have a social media presence. When I had trouble with my dishwasher recently, I called for repair and then turned to social media to help solve the problem. While you may already have a Twitter account and a Facebook page, is what you’re doing enough? A new tool from Dell allows you to compare your company’s investments in the social media arena with others.

 

This new tool was inspired by a July report from Dell and Forrester Consulting, Listening and Engaging in the Digital Marketing Age, that showed a correlation between social listening and improved customer satisfaction.

 

The data presented is the result of a survey of 200 marketing professionals at U.S.-based medium and large-sized companies.

 

Key findings outlined in the report include:

 

 

As you can see, social media is an integral part of doing business today. However, a company can’t just blindly invest in a digital marketing campaign; as with everything in the marketing world the dollars need to be spent wisely. Are you spending more than other companies but not seeing much return on your investment? Is our company falling short with its digital marketing dollars? The Dell Social Media Assessment tool can help you answer these questions.

 

Since I’m self-employed I don’t have a social media budget to assess but I did fill out the tool using a few mock answers: I chose a high-tech business with less than 100 employees that is experimenting with social media. This mock company does not have a full-time headcount for listening and digital engagement and has spent less than $10,000 on these efforts in the past 12 months.

 

Once you complete the tool, you will see your company’s efforts matched up against the benchmark. One of the findings presented actually surprised me: only 20 percent of the companies surveyed have social media as a core part of the overall marketing effort. Most of the companies, 50 percent, are serious about social media but do not consider it to be a core function. I expected more companies to have a stronger focus on social media efforts. This may mean that although the social media arena already has a strong presence in the United States, there may be much more room for growth, especially in the business arena.

 

For more information download Dell’s digital marketing report and then fill out the Social Media Assessment tool and see how your efforts stack up.