Mediarun Search Marketing News

Interest in social media as a marketing tool is growing

March 4th 2010

Social Media Optimisation News

There will be greater interest in social media as a marketing platform in 2010, according to one sector commentator.

Darren Dutton, business director at Marketing.co.uk, noted that there had been a lot more interest in social media as a marketing channel and website optimisation tool over the last year or so.

Speaking at the recent Technology for Marketing & Advertising (TFM&A) event 2010, Mr Dutton said that while social media is not yet a mainstream marketing platform, he expected the interest to be sustained throughout 2010

He explained that there had been a lot of focus on social media at the TFM&A - the UK's only integrated marketing and advertising event which took place in London last week.

"There're a lot of people at this event talking about social media, including ourselves," he said.

Mr Dutton predicted that in 12 months social media would change even more. "You might find there will be smaller networks, more [channels]," he said.

He also estimated that business use of social media would become much more widespread.

"Other companies in other sectors, whether that be finance or construction, will start tapping into social media to connect to their target audiences."

A recent study revealed that Twitter is the fastest growing social media channel among the Fortune 500 - a list of the world's top performing companies.

The study conducted by the Society for New Communications Research showed that 35 per cent of the Fortune 500 have active Twitter accounts, many of which are also linked to corporate blogs.

However, search engine optimisation (SEO) specialist Nathan McDonald stressed the importance of integrating social campaigns with other marketing ventures.

"Businesses must align their social media campaigns with all other marketing strategies if they are to get the most from these campaigns," he said.