Social Media And Events Continue To Grow: 2012 Research

Marketers still place a high value on social media.

83% of marketers surveyed by Social Media Examiner indicate that social media is important to their business. 73% of event organizers surveyed by Amiando indicate that social media is important to their conferences, events and meetings.

Clearly social media is a fad that’s gone rad and part of the norm.

2012 Interesting Social Media Stats For Marketing And Events

Here are some interesting 2012 social media stats comparing business marketers and event organizers.

Top Five Social Media Tools

The top five social media tools/networks for business used by 3,800 marketers according to Social Media Examiner 2012 Social Media Report and in order of priority are:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Blogs
  • YouTube

The top five social media tools/networks used by 1,000 international event organizers according to Amiando 2012 Social Media Events Research and in order of priority are:

  • Facebook (84%)
  • Twitter (61%)
  • Xing (48%)
  • YouTube (42%)
  • LinkedIn (41%)

Social Network Most Interested In Learning More About And Planning To Use More

Both business marketers (75%) and event organizers (40%) have the most interest in learning more about using Google+ for their businesses.

76% of marketers have identified video marketing as the top spot for their future marketing plans.

Top Five Benefits Of Social Media Marketing

The top five benefits of social media marketing according to Social Media Examiner 2012 Report are:

  • Generating more business exposure (85%)
  • Increasing traffic (69%)
  • Providing marketplace insight (65%)
  • Generating leads (58%)
  • Developing loyal fans (58%)

The top five social media goals of event organizers according to Amiando 2012 Social Media Event Research are:

  • Raise awareness of event (70%)
  • Raise awareness of brand (70%)
  • Increase customer loyalty (65%)
  • Creating a new communication channel (52%)
  • Generating leads (37%)

Social Media Helped Them Improve

  • 85% of marketers said that their social media efforts increased exposure of their business. 95% of marketers using social media for three years or more agree.
  • 65% of marketers who spend more than 30+ hours a week on social media networks earn new business through their efforts
  • 58% of marketers who have been using social media for more than three years report it helped them improve sales.
  • 72% of marketers using social media for three years or more saw new business partnerships increase. 44% of marketers using social media at least six months also saw business partnerships increase. 56% of those using social media six to ten hours a week saw partnerships increase.
  • Nearly 76% of event organizers report initial success using social media for their conferences, events and meetings.
  • 53% event organizers said that social media increased the familiarity of their event.
  • 51% event organizers said that social media increased the familiarity of their brand.
  • 41% event organizers said that social media increased their customer loyalty.

How Often Are Event Organizers Publishing In Social Media

  • 30% of event organizers publish up to 10 items in social networks every week.
  • 36% post more than 25 items each week.

It’s clear that both business marketers and event organizers see enormous potential in social media for their businesses. Both are seeking to expand those activities and its benefits.

Which social media benefits have you noticed for your conferences, events and meetings? What are some of your social media goals for your events for the remainder of 2012 and 2013?

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11 comments
  1. Andrea Cook says:

    Very interesting statistics Jeff. Thank you for sharing. We are certainly in the midst of a wide digital divide. I was just at a meeting this week with 50 meeting planners in the room, none of them use a hashtag for their events. Not even sure they knew what a hashtag was, let alone the added results it can bring to awareness of an event.

  2. hahahaha! Would that event have been in the Windy City of Chicago Andrea? I think I know where you were.

    Thanks for sharing the study, Jeff. What blows my mind is Google+ didn’t make the top 5 of either Top SM Tools/Networks list and no social media management or measurement tools (Tweetreach, Hootsuite) were mentioned.

    That points out, in my mind, that people aren’t focusing on why they’re on certain channels, may not be managing their time wisely and certainly aren’t measuring their impact or reach. They’re still just trying to catch the trail of what’s cool rather than focusing on audience, response, engagement, goals and measurements.

    As to why they want to know more about G+: Search algorithms have shifted in favor of social search. Google is #1 search engine, YouTube (owned by Google) is the #2 search engine and other engines like Bing tend to do what Google is doing. If you have a G+ profile and +1 or start sharing info and links through G+, the 100s or 1000s of people who have you in their circle will start to see everything you recommend that’s relevant high up in their search results.

    1. Jeff Hurt says:

      ‘@Andrea
      Thanks for reading and sharing. Hashtag phobia maybe? Kidding. Sad they didn’t know what a hashtag was. I wonder how many of those meeting professionals were actually involved in marketing their events?

      @Kristi
      Good point about measurement tools…FYI, I didn’t include everything in my summary from the reports. Both reports do have research about management and measurement tools so it is on their minds. Thanks for reading and commenting as always!.

  3. Great list of stats here, Jeff! I was a little surprised that Facebook is more of a priority for event organizers than Twitter, but I’m guessing that’s because of the event pages on Facebook.

    I recently put together a post about using social media during events and would be interested in knowing the stats on how many event organizers are actually measuring their campaigns. My emphasis has been on collecting data while covering events from a social media perspective but the report seems to only provide arbitrary measurement.

    Here’s a link to my post in-case you’re interested: http://metia.com/seattle/corey-christiansen/2012/july/i-used-social-media-to-promote-my-event,-now-what/

    1. Jeff Hurt says:

      ‘@Cory
      Great question on what stats meeting professionals and conference organizers are using to measure their campaigns. I suspect that in most cases, it’s the marketing department’s job to measure those stats. Some do it well. Some don’t even do it at all. Some are measuring conversion, CTR, sentiment, reach and engagement.

      Thanks for commenting and reading too.

      @Greg
      What are the Key metrics? Depends upon the key objectives and goals, IMO. Some are just concerned with raising awareness of their events. Some want new prospects to become customers. Some want to increase loyalty. The goals are all across the board and a one-size-fits-all doesn’t work. Just sayin…

      Thanks for reading, commenting and continuing the discussion. I’ll take a look at your product too.

  4. Greg Higgins says:

    Hey Jeff,

    Thanks for the data! Fascinating stuff. We’ve been focusing on integrating our client’s events with their social media networks and even started building websites that gather all of their social media buzz in a photo/video gallery on the site. A social media snapshot/collage.

    We noticed huge increases on their event’s social reach and amplification and the clients love it.

    Now we’re really trying to pin down which metrics are most important for our clients.

    What do you think are the key metrics? Thanks!

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  6. […] how to market your conference effectively? We found this post by Jeff Hurt to be very informative, Social media and Events Continue to Grow: 2012 including stats on what marketing platforms are most important to event […]

  7. Ian Adams says:

    I didn’t think anyone was interested in / using Google +. Appreciate the summary Jeff.

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