One of the first ever studies on the use of social media by Maltese business organisations has revealed that there is widespread use of social networks and tools but it is not clear whether this is effective and generating more business.

ICON, a local web design and development company, has just released the results of the Social Media Marketing in Malta report, which examines the use of social media by Maltese companies as part of their marketing efforts.

Getting statistics on the utilisation of social media by end users is not difficult however ICON could not find data on the business use of social media. This is what encouraged the company to look into this segment.

The report says a significant 85 per cent of local marketers use social networks as part of their marketing initiatives to grow their business. They do generate business exposure and Facebook is the preferred tool. While companies seem to be eager to invest more in social media, measuring return on investment remains a major concern.

“I did not expect such a high number of marketers already using social media to grow their business. Naturally one needs to then examine whether such usage is indeed correct and of benefit to the company,” Daniela Grech, the author of the report, told i-Tech.

Almost half the marketers interviewed claim that they do not know how to measure the effect of social media on their business. Marketers have other concerns when it comes to messages and content posted on their social channels, and integrating all their various tools into a single strategy.

“It was startling to see that almost half of the respondents want to measure their return on investment from social media marketing, yet most do not know how to go about it. Although there is no magic answer to this concern, I do recommend certain actions – such as having a strategy with tangible goals to reach, monitoring impressions and clicks, and integrating analytics. You will not be able to measure your return on investment if you haven’t set any goals in the initial phase,” explained Ms Grech.

Marketers confirmed social media brings an increase in online traffic (58 per cent) and search rankings (31 per cent). Facebook is the most common tool used, however, the longer the experience by marketers in using such tools the more likely they are to use other tools apart from Facebook.

The report also reveals that marketers are eager to learn more on social media. Almost half the participants want to learn more about Facebook, followed by LinkedIn, then Twitter and Foursquare. Business-to-business (B2B) companies are interested in learning about location-based social networks such as Foursquare.

Most social media marketing is carried out in-house and only 14.5 per cent outsource part of their social media efforts.

Indeed getting fresh ideas seems to be one of the hurdles, with lack of creative campaigns being a major weakness.

“Marketers must realise that they are not going to engage customers on their social media through ‘adverts’ that are normally found on more traditional channels. Social media by its very nature entails communication – marketers must think of creative campaigns to entertain and connect with followers, other than hard-selling,” warned Ms Grech.

So what are the main ingredients of a successful marketing campaign based on social media?

“Select the most appropriate tool (e.g. Facebook vs. LinkedIn) according to your target audience – you need to know where your audience is and what entices them. It is indeed better to engage deeper with one social media platform rather than spread your efforts thinly over multiple platforms. Synchronise your social media efforts with your marketing strategy to ensure that there is a homogenous effort throughout,” concluded the author of the report.

ICON engineered an online questionnaire to get responses for the survey. The sample was a randomised from a list of registered businesses in Malta. The method of contact was e-mail and the response data was stored online. In most cases the respondent was the marketing manager of the firm, or a person of equal standing within the organisation.

www.icon.com.mt/socialmedia