Study: Marketers Still Face Challenges with Strategic Social Media Marketing

Many marketers are turning to social media to appeal to their target audience, but new research shows they still face a number of challenges when it comes to strategizing and implementing this tactic.

In Sprout Social’s recently published “The State of Social Media Marketing 2019,” developing social strategies that support business goals and identifying and understanding target audiences represented social media marketers’ greatest challenges. Securing budget and resources for social media, content publishing, and measuring ROI were also significant challenges for social media marketers.

Time (59 percent) was named the biggest challenge when social media marketers were asked what keeps them from strategic work, followed by business priorities (45 percent) and an overload of tactical work (29 percent).

In terms of campaign objectives, the report showed that 70 percent of marketers use social media to increase brand awareness, while 59 percent turn to it to improve sales/lead generation. Forty-eight percent utilize social to increase community engagement, and 46 percent use it to grow their brand’s audience.

Customers Want Marketers to Use Social to Connect

Despite the challenges that come with utilizing social media, previous research indicates that customers would like to see more marketers turn to these channels to connect.

Sprout Social conducted the “Creating Connection: What Consumers Want from Brands in a Divided Society” report, and statistics showed that 78 percent of customers would like to see companies use social media to help people connect with each other.

When customers feel more connected to brands, more than half of them (57 percent) say they increase their spending with that particular company, and 76 percent choose them over competitors.