Most marketing chiefs (82%) plan to use more social media over the next few years, but many are struggling with the volume of customer data on social networking sites, according to an IBM study.

A survey of 1,700 chief marketing officers (CMOs) from 64 countries and 19 industries found that only 40% track online communications and 82% still rely on traditional marketing measure such as focus groups. 

Two-thirds of respondents think that return on investment (ROI) will be the main measure of a campaign’s success by 2015, but most of them are unsure about how to prove that investments in social media have a good ROI. 

Although 56% said they were using digital marketing channels, they found it hard to analyse the raw data from social networking sites. Because social media data isn’t collected on databases, it is difficult to understand using traditional computer programs. 

There are many analytics tools to track and measure social media data but only 48% of CMOs are tracking consumer reviews, for instance. 

CMOs face four major challenges according to the study: the data explosion, change in demographics, rise of social media platforms and channel and device choices. 

Posted by 

Neil Turner