Making a case for social media in a recession

A Brian Solis article in the Social Computing Journal asks "Is Social Media Recession-Proof?".

Highlights:

- While dollars evaporate from traditional budgets previously earmarked for advertising, public relations, events, and other ROI elusive programs, the general sentiment seems to recognize Social Media as a cost efficient experiment for maintaining visibility without falling completely off the radar screens of potential customers, stakeholders, and influencers."

- Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang recently published a report asking B2B orgs this: "Assuming that the economy is in recession in the next six months, how would you change your investment in social media overall?" A massive 53% intended to increase their investment while 42% said it would stay the same and 5% said they would decrease spending.

- In a report published by Aberdeen Group, 63% of surveyed companies intended on increasing social media budgets in 2009.



- Sergio Balegno of MarketingSherpa from a Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Survey (Dec 2008)says about 80 percent of small, medium and large businesses claimed they're embracing and practicing some form of social media in outbound marketing.



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- Social media scores high on increasing brand reputation, brand awareness, search engine rankings and website traffic but seems to meander towards less effective for generating leads, internal communications, and online sales.



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- Some effective tactics include: Online news release distribution, User reviews or ratings, Blogger or online journalist relations, Forums or discussion groups and Blogging on a company blog.



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Links:
Social Computing Journal
Is Social Media Recession-Proof