Marketers Adopt Social Media Analytics Tools

The rise in social media analytics tools has satisfied marketer demand for a way to measure and gather insights from social marketing efforts.

Nearly two-thirds of organizations in North America have adopted them, according to a January 2014 study by Demand Metric sponsored by NetBase. And this group responded quickly to the release of such tools—over half of takeup had occurred in the previous two years.

Now that they have them, how are marketing professionals using social media analytics tools for optimization? The top response among those polled by Demand Metric was campaign tracking (60%). This was followed by brand analysis (48%) and competitive intelligence (40%).

Despite the excitement surrounding the implementation of social media analytics tools, there are still challenges when it comes to measuring social marketing’s effect. The No. 1 obstacle cited by respondents was staffing, funding or resources, at 55%. Linking measurements to objectives was a close second (53%).

November 2013 polling by Ascend2 found similar results. When asked what the most challenging obstacles to achieving important social media marketing objectives were, 47% of marketing professionals worldwide cited budget and/or staff limitations, the top response. Inability to measure social marketing return on investment and difficulty attributing sales to social marketing were also top hurdles.

Courtesy of eMarketer