Communications Survey: Lack of Confidence in Social Media Success

I’ve been writing about different aspects of social media usage among NFPA members using both my own observations and survey data about member habits. While it’s easy to tell who is using social media for marketing, it’s harder to tell whose efforts are successful. Like the Facebook friend who posts every day but rarely gets any likes or comments, corporate social media messages can also fall on deaf ears.

Overall, NFPA members are not entirely confident that the messages they put on social media are having the impact they’re intended to have. Part of this stems from members either using social media sporadically or not using certain platforms at all, with the majority stating that the success question for Twitter, Facebook and Google+ did not apply to their company. The majority did feel that their use of LinkedIn and YouTube has been somewhat successful, however. A fairly high percentage, although not the majority, felt that their efforts on Facebook and Google+ have been somewhat successful. And, a fairly high percentage said outright that their companies have not been successful on Twitter.

When sorting by primary function, every group was not confident in Twitter usage and somewhat confident in LinkedIn usage. Educators were among the most confident in Facebook usage, although not overwhelmingly so. Distributors were the most confident about YouTube use while overall confidence in Google+ was mixed. Company size made little difference in confidence level by platform.

For more information contact Katrina Schwarz, NFPA’s Marketing Manager.