Irish marketers see opportunities and risks in using social media. Its main advantages include understanding audiences better (79 per cent), providing openings to make connections (68 per cent) and cost savings (46 per cent). They mainly use social media for relationship building (84 per cent), creating brand awareness (76 per cent) and for following online conversations about companies, brands and people (66 per cent).
The downsides include 61 per cent saying social media has increased their workloads, 51 per cent have concerns about damage to a company’s reputation, 52 per cent find a challenge in keeping up to date with social media developments and 39 per cent have a fear of making mistakes that cannot be corrected on sites.
The study was produced by the Amas online agency in tandem with the Marketing Institute. In the survey, 43 per cent of the 400-plus sample had moved their marketing spend away from newspapers, while 41 per cent had moved it away from direct mail. TV, radio, cinema and outdoor have proved to be more resilient.
