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Feb 03, 2009

Article

New Chart: Lack of Knowledge Seen as Most Significant Barrier to Social Media Adoption

SUMMARY: Lack of knowledge is seen as the major barrier to adopting a social media marketing strategy. This lack of experience can create missteps that might scare marketers away from social media – despite education that comes fast when adopting a social strategy.

Which Factors Have Presented the Most Significant Barriers to Social Media Adoption for Your Organization or Client?
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The most significant barrier to social media adoption named by 46% of respondents to a MarketingSherpa survey is “lack of knowledgeable staff” – whether an organization has used social media marketing and PR or not.

A danger to the effective adoption of social media as a marketing strategy is the large percentage of those who consider themselves knowledgeable – but have no social media experience.

Two-thirds of marketers at organizations that have not used social media marketing or PR said they are “very” or “somewhat” knowledgeable about the subject. Without social media experience, however, this level of knowledge is unlikely. It may be the reason “lack of knowledgeable staff” is seen as the most significant barrier.

There is good news, though. Lessons come fast once an organization engages with social media. Until those lessons are learned, though, initial missteps could lead to marketers abandoning the program.

A stagnant Facebook group doesn’t mean that ‘social media just isn’t for us’ – it simply suggests that there’s more to learn. Over the next several weeks, we’ll explore social media with charts from MarketingSherpa’s upcoming report.

Useful links related to this article

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More Research Data from Sherpa:
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/membertour.html?view=re
earch

MarketingSherpa Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Guide
http://www.sherpastore.com/socialmediabmg09.html

Comments about this Article

Feb 04, 2009 - Eyal Sela of productivewise says:
here is a report about how Professionals Use web 2.0 . I believe it'll be complementary to this post by giving another point of view about the use of social media in organizations.

Feb 07, 2009 - David H Deans of GeoActive Group USA says:
Not surprising results, when you consider that the whole concept of social media is counter-intuitive to those schooled in legacy mass-marketing. Moving from the traditional one-way monologue to an engaged dialog is simply too threatening for most PR people in particular. Just look out how Edelman, the world's largest PR firm, repeatedly made mistakes at their client's expense. Their numerous errors have made others retreat from engaging in social media.

Feb 16, 2009 - Clay Posey of MRP Design Group says:
Not only lack of knowledge, but fear/ignorance about it. I suspect management resistance might really be much higher - I'd like to see the question that led to that data. Don't understand it, don't want to understand it=don't do it.

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New Chart: Lack of Knowledge Seen as Most Significant Barrier to Social Media Adoption

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