Irish marketing executives see major opportunities – and risks – in using social media, according to the latest State of the Net quarterly bulletin.
The 2011 Irish Digital Marketing Sentiment Survey, published by AMAS in partnership with the Marketing Institute of Ireland, is the most extensive of its kind undertaken among Irish marketing professionals. The survey looked at trends in how the Irish marketing community treats social media websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in its overall marketing mix.
The marketers say social media’s main advantages include understanding audiences better (79%), providing opportunities to make valuable connections (68%) and cost savings (46%). They primarily use social media for relationship building (84%), creating brand awareness (76%) and for following online conversations about companies, brands and people (66%).
However, they say social media has its downsides:
- 61% say that it has increased their workloads
- 51% have concerns about damage to a company’s reputation
- 52% find a challenge in keeping up to date with what is happening in the social media space
- 39% have a fear of making mistakes that can’t be corrected on social media sites
“The survey is a barometer of changing marketing behaviour in Ireland,” said Aileen O’Toole, Managing Director of online consultancy AMAS, which publishes State of the Net. “The results show that marketers are continuing to move their budgets online. Some traditional forms of advertising are losing out to advertising across a bewildering array of digital channels.”
In the survey 43% of the sample had moved their marketing spend away from newspapers, while 41% had moved it away from direct mail. TV, radio, cinema and outdoor have proved to be more resilient.
Conducted by AMAS in partnership with the Marketing Institute of Ireland (MII), over 400 Irish marketers participated in this year’s survey, and three out of five have budgetary responsibility for their business’s marketing function.
Other trends plotted in the current issue of State of the Net, which is published in association with the Irish Internet Association, include:
- Children’s internet habits – more than half of Irish 9 to 16-year-olds are now online every day
- Irish businesses online – 23% sell electronically, and just under a half have client extranets
Read more
Download the Spring edition of State of the Net (PDF, 1,620 KB)
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Access the full AMAS/MII marketing survey from SlideShare
