Social Media Marketing Survey Results

Social Media Survey – The Results Are In!

You may remember that we recently invited businesses in the Highlands and Islands to take part in our social media marketing survey.   The last 10 years have seen dramatic digital change and we wanted to get a better understanding of the digital challenges and opportunities that Highland businesses face.

We would like to thank the 123 businesses who gave us their feedback – the majority of businesses who took the survey operated in Tourism and Hospitality, Business to Business Services, Food and Drink, Retail and Creative Industries.  These were mostly small businesses with 83 respondents having less than 10 employees and only 4 businesses with more than 250 employees.

What did we find out?  

• The top three reasons that Highland businesses used social media in 2016 were: to build awareness; drive traffic to websites; and sell their services/products
• Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn were the three most used platforms
• 40% of businesses used Instagram
• 37% of businesses used YouTube
• Only 59% of businesses said they had a social media strategy in place
• 63% used Google Analytics to measure ROI of social media activities, closely followed by Facebook Analytics (62%)
• 20% of businesses didn’t use Analytics from Google, Facebook, Twitter or Hootsuite
• 53% felt that social media improved the performance of their business in 2016
• Only 51% used social media advertising to promote their business
• 43% of businesses used email marketing and 22% used Pay Per Click advertising
• 33% of businesses didn’t use any paid social media advertising in 2016 and 32% spent less than £100
• Improving engagement and reach were the two top aims for businesses in 2017
• The average rating for the internet speed at work was 3.25 stars

If you’re part of the 54% who said that they would like to improve their social media marketing strategy and create an organised, targeted approach to social media, why not get in touch and find out more about our Social Media Marketing Strategy service.

 

Is Facebook your top platform for promoting your business?  What are your aims for using social media?  We’d love to hear your comments or questions, leave a comment below.