What you need to know about the state of social media

Perhaps it’s not statistically valid, but the survey has an impressive number of respondents and provides a solid indication of the state of social media. Several things jumped out at me:

1. Social media remains important to business. It’s no surprise that 83 percent of marketers either agreed or strongly agreed that social media is important to business. What is surprising is 54 percent of solo business owners strongly agreed with this statement. That means small shops with limited time and resources see the most opportunity in using social media. Is that because social media is low cost or valuable?

2. Professionals spend less time on social media in 2012. Just 38 percent of marketers spend one to five hours weekly on social media. Twenty-six percent spend six to 10 hours, and as little as 15 percent spend 20 or more hours each week on social media.

This amazes me because it strikes me as too little time. Maybe experienced professionals have social media all figured out and don’t need to spend any more time on it—everyone is an expert now—but I doubt it. It takes a lot of time to build engagement on social media.