Do Tech Decision Makers Care about Social Media?
Posted by April 2nd 09
Unless you've been hiding in a cave for the past year or so, you have probably heard of social media by now. If you haven't, check out this definition on Wikipedia. Is social media an insular practice that is bound to die out or does it have a promising future for commerce and industries? Do decision markers care about social media?
PRWeek seems to think so. They published an interesting study showing that social media and user-generated sites are of equal importance to traditional media sources when decision makers consider tech purchases. Ads and direct marketing are least important according to the study.
The “Tech Decision Maker” study found that decision makers consider their personal experience (58%) first when short-listing tech vendors, followed by word-of-mouth and industry analyst reports, tied at 51%. But a nearly equal number of respondents cited user-generated media (28%) and traditional media (27%) as most influential in purchasing decisions. Social media seems to be equally influential to conventional outlets.
Measuring the impact of social media on sales, leads, marketing efforts and return on investment can sometimes feel akin to voodoo practices. Which metrics work, and which ones don't? Search Engine Land has an interesting post about ROI for social media marketing (http://searchengineland.com/social-media-marketing-roi-metrics-and-analysis-14630) that does provide some much needed answers.
Will social media revolutionize the way the tech industry does business? We would love to know what you think!
posted in Other
May 2012
