DUKKY

According to a recent survey, the realm of social media may play a key role in new customer acquisition. Good thing Dukky allows a seamless integration of social media into traditional marketing efforts.

Social media big winner in marketing mix

Marketers’ top priorities for 2010 will be customer acquisition and retention, followed by thought leadership, according to a survey by virtual events provider Unisfair.

Six in 10 marketers polled said acquiring new customers would be critical in 2010, while 48% would focus on retaining current customers—a particularly important effort in the recession.

Unisfair suggested that virtual communities to engage both current and future customers would help accomplish both these major goals. Some 48% of marketers seem to agree—that’s the number of respondents who said virtual events were among the top three activities they planned to increase next year. The most common response was social media, selected by three-quarters of marketers polled, followed by search (51%) and e-mail (49%).

Unisfair also quizzed marketers on which social networks provided the most value. Professional network LinkedIn was on top, at 26%. Slightly fewer respondents thought Facebook had the greatest value-add, at 23%, while 17% named Twitter.

LinkedIn only has a tiny market share of all social network visits—0.25% in the first week of September 2009 according to Experian Hitwise. But Unisfair’s results are less surprising in light of its attractive user demographics. Members are significantly more likely than users of other networks to be affluent, well-educated and employed full-time, based on data from Anderson Analytics. LinkedIn users also report making more purchases online in almost every product category.