Brands in Asia Pacific are placing social media at the heart of their strategy as they strive towards 360-degree customer engagement, according to a study released by TNS.
The results from the annual Marketing Monitor study across Asia Pacific highlight the centrality of social media for marketers – it ranked as the top element guiding the planning process, as well as the top metric used to measure the performance of campaigns.
According to the study, businesses are using a variety of sources to inform their marketing strategy. However, insights gathered through social media monitoring have finally overtaken more traditional metrics such as market share data and brand tracking to become the most popular component used by marketers.
The top five metrics informing planning are: 1) Social media monitoring; 2) Market share data; 3) What the competition is doing; 4) Focus groups; and 5) Opinions of senior management. These findings echo the changes happening in consumer behaviour across the country.
As people become more connected via digital channels, brands are focusing on how they can communicate with their customers in the online spaces where they are already spending time – social.
“It’s no secret that social has become an intrinsic part of our daily lives – 99% of connected consumers in Malaysia [for example] use social networks, switching between Facebook, Instagram and Google+ as the top three platforms,” said TNS’ Asia Pacific digital director Zoë Lawrence.
“This mass adoption of social provides marketers with an array of sources when it comes to developing strategies and evaluating the effectiveness of their marketing activity.
“As the digital ecosystem evolves, we will continue to identify new ways to build insights. However, whatever the metric used, it’s important to ensure marketers are monitoring the indicators that contribute to sales,” she added.
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