Social Media Marketing Best Practices: eMarketer

FEBRUARY 8, 2010 – Every day, businesses want�and need�to know more about social media marketing. They want to know how to do it, how to measure it, how to manage it and where it�s going. This week, eMarketer is publishing a new series of Insight Briefs that answer the key questions that businesses have about social media marketing.

Social media is no longer a trend for marketers; it is a reality. eMarketer forecasts that social network ad spending will reach $2.5 billion worldwide in 2010 and $1.3 billion in the US. About 64% of US Internet users will interact with user-generated content this year, and 26 million US adults will use Twitter at least monthly. Mobile social networks will reach 223 million people around the world.

Already, more than one-half of marketers are engaging in some social media activity, according to survey data from a number of researchers.

“With so much intense interest and activity, the big question is, Are marketers doing it right?” said Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer CEO and author of “10 Best Practices for Success with Social Media,” one of the Insight Briefs in the series.

“Since social media marketing has the potential to affect so many areas of an organization,” he said, “the enormity of this opportunity leads many marketers to chase after every technique, tactic and metric that passes them by.”

Instead, marketers should focus on fewer but better-defined objectives�and remember that listening, establishing trust, adding value and projecting authenticity are among the best practices that are critical to their success with social media.

Listening is a core competency that all marketers must master. Without good listening skills, marketers will not be able to effectively use social media to reach their customers.

“10 Best Practices for Success with Social Media” and “Social Media Marketing by the Numbers: Key Stats, Trends and Indicators” are part of a series of eMarketer Insight Briefs focused on social media marketing. Available exclusively to Total Access subscribers, the seven briefs, along with a PowerPoint slideshow, answer the most common and most pressing questions that businesses have about social media marketing.

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By gathering the latest research and news from over 1,000 sources, eMarketer has established itself as the world’s leading provider of internet and e-business statistics. eMarketer’s Web site is at www.emarketer.com.