It’s somewhat alarming that nearly 80% of the marketers surveyed in the Alterian Annual Survey admit they are concerned their brand is at risk from not being engaged with customers. At least the majority say they recognize the problem areas and are taking actions to rectify them, such as dedicating a larger portion of the marketing budget toward the social/digital space to gain the necessary resources for increased message customization across web, email and social media.

Just as concerning was the fact that the survey showed less than one third of marketers have a strong understanding of social media conversations happening around their brand. In fact, 7 in 10 indicated they either have very little to no understanding (31%) or use a few ad-hoc tools to track and measure social media conversations (39%). This “lack of understanding” trend continues when one considers that a large portion of marketers appear to be limited in analytical competency, indicating they either have no analytical experience concerning digital media (6%), stop at the basic analytical level (29%) or struggle to tie analytics back to the campaign strategy (27.5 %).

Let’s face it: whether it’s Campaigns, Conversations or Clicks, marketers, more now than ever before, must be accountable for results. My CEO is on my case every time we meet. The tools are available to measure all these things, show how well you engage, together with all the clues as to what to do about it.

Perhaps in 2011 we should all resolve to invest in the tools and training… and to get engaging.

About Bob Barker

has written 26 post in this blog.

Alterian’s head of marketing, passionate about unlocking organisations digital marketing potential with technology and also unlocking individuals digital potential to help grow the companies social capital and their own.

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