Social Media key focus, but how to plan and pay for it

Thu 12 November 2009 14:42, Bas van den Beld

The results of a UK survey by Vocus amongst more than 1,800 marketing and PR professionals show that 80 percent believes social media is the key focus for 2010. They however also believe that planning will be more difficult.

The PR professionals also feel PR's role in the overall marketing mix will become more important, but they are afraid they will have to do more with less money. They believe businesses will want to use social media, but are less willing to pay for it.

Social Media will be part of the daily job of a PR agency. The agencies however don't think social media will come instead of regular business. It will be an extra in the ordinary day-to-day routine. It therefore will become difficult to plan it. PR professionals feel they might not have enough time for it.

The survey also looked at budget. 41% believes the budgets won't change in 2010. A third however thinks budgets will increase.

Other key findings from the survey are:

Trying times. 64 percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that PR planning will be more difficult in 2010.
Cautious optimism. 42 percent indicated PR budgets will remain flat in 2010, though one-third also said they anticipated their budget increasing slightly (24 percent) or significantly (5 percent).
Innovate and invest in technology. 63 percent are planning to refine processes in 2010 while 51 percent will invest in new technology in order to do more with less.
Social media to be a key focus in 2010. 80 percent of respondents say they will focus on social media in 2010; multimedia is not far behind with 63 percent, while measuring results, SEO and viral campaigns trail with 58, 57 and 56 percent respectively.
PR increasingly important to marketing. 64 percent believe that PR will become increasingly important in the overall marketing mix in 2010.

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Comments (3)

- Frank Strong
- [website]
One small note for clarity - this survey was from a US-based sample. We conducted the same survey in the UK, but the results are not yet finalized. We hope to have those out early next week. If you'd like a copy feel free to send me an e-mail or catch me on Twitter @vocus

Frank Strong
Director of Public Relations
Vocus

Thu 12 Nov 2009, 16:03
- Bas van den Beld
- [website]
Hi Frank, thanks for the update, we off course are very much interested in the UK results also!

Thu 12 Nov 2009, 16:06
- Frank Strong
- [website]
Just a head's up to let you know we've posted the UK Survey results: http://bit.ly/3efh8y

Cheers,
Frank

Tue 17 Nov 2009, 15:32

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