Gallup Inc. released a report Monday entitled “The Myth of Social Media,” that concluded “social media are not the powerful and persuasive marketing force many companies hoped they would be.” This is certainly an attention grabbing headline, but not all that surprising. Traditional market researchers like Gallup have been slow to warm to social media. I’ve been in the business too long to blindly accept the validity of this conclusion.
Gallup used a common methodology in behavioral science by using self-report questionnaires to gather data. There are a multitude of problems associated with self-report measures and how they might impact the validity of conclusions. Data from such questionnaires is used to identify relationships between scores on the variable that the questionnaire is assumed to measure – in this case the impact of social media marketing influence on consumers’ buying decisions. Gallup’s survey was conducted through the Web and mail questionnaires from December 2012 to January 2013. Gallup shared that 62% of the over 18,000 U.S. consumers sampled said social media had no influence on their buying decisions. Another 30% said it had some influence. There are a large number of reasons why Gallup’s questionnaire may not be entirely valid including the control of sample, response bias and the introspective ability (or lack there of) of the participants.
More importantly, Gallup’s survey measured the impact of social media marketing in isolation of other marketing channels. This is a major flaw not only of this survey but also how most companies currently measure their marketing outcomes. Gallup’s survey doesn’t represent the fact that omni-channel marketing touch points are increasingly intertwined. For instance, a Twitter ad can prompt a Google search that leads to a click-through on a display ad that ultimately, ends in a sale. To truly understand how a company’s marketing mix works in concert across media and sales channels, marketers must adopt new, sophisticated data analysis techniques.
The Gallup survey does illuminate the phenomenal user adoption rates of social media and the massive volumes of data created. This arguably legitimizes social media as a long-term communication channel that can no longer be regarded as a fad. The survey reveals that an estimated 226 million, or 72% of US adults, use social media, with the majority of those saying they login several times a day. By 2015, research firm IDC predicts there will be more than 5,300 exabytes of unstructured digital consumer data stored in databases. For context, one exabyte equals 1 million terabytes, and Facebook’s databases ingest approximately 500 terabytes of data each day. Facebook ingests around 500 times more data each day than the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Twitter is storing at least 12 times more data each day than the NYSE.
To date, this data has been largely untapped due to ineffective means to extract the signal from the noise in unstructured data.
I strongly agree with Gallup’s recommendation that after years of chasing Facebook fans and Twitter followers,“companies must refine their strategies to stress quality over quantity of fans”. Social media data has not been harnessed due to the lack of good techniques for filtering and processing the information. First generation enterprise social analytics platforms for the most part are passive and lack the rigor, insight and actions for serious market researchers. Marketers must adopt new, sophisticated data analysis techniques. Gallup points out that “consumers are highly adept at tuning out brand-related Facebook and Twitter content.” Once armed with data-driven audience and topic insights, brand marketers will be able create bolder, braver and more compelling content that resonates with its consumers across channels to drive business outcomes.
If you’re interested in hearing more, I would love to talk, and walk you through the People Pattern platform. Feel free to reach out at ken@peoplepattern.com, or request a customized demo below.
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