Many companies use social media incorrectly

Thumbs down: Many companies fail to take advantage of the opportunity for a real dialog with their customers via social media.The advent of social media in the last decade has opened up completely new opportunities for companies: organizations can establish close contact with their customers and communicate with them at eye level. Information is no longer just announced, but also shared by millions of connected users. They primarily rely on large networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Engagement is at the top of the agenda. For many companies, however, this is where social media reaches its limits. A survey of 3,720 social media managers by Social Media Examiner shows how things actually look behind the scenes: 93 percent of companies that use social media rely on Facebook, 79 percent swear by Twitter. Yet the social media strategy looks rather monotonous. The networks are mainly used as an outsourced marketing platform to post the company's own content. Interaction with users is rather rare. Only 14 percent of respondents maintain their own community for customer communication. Two thirds of interviewees also stated that expanding customer engagement was their top priority. This is also reflected in monitoring: for 80 percent, the engagement rate is the most important metric. Other metrics such as the click-through rate or social impressions are hardly relevant. Conversely, this means that no comprehensive statement can be made about social media success. A real relationship of trust between brand and customer is rarely established.Remedy thanks to social media tools?Social media tools promise a remedy. They offer functions that the networks themselves do not have. Larger functionalities are intended to help publish posts on several channels at the right time and pick up on current topics relevant to the target group. Time savings, effectiveness, increased performance, security and success measurement are promised. However, although many companies pay for social media tools, according to Forrester they are rarely used - many marketing managers find them too complicated to use or lack important functions. For example, 67 percent of major brands still publish Facebook posts manually. The result also falls short of expectations when it comes to saving time: marketers today spend more time on social media management than in the past. According to Social Media Examiner, this amounted to 12.8 hours per week in 2015 compared to 10.9 hours in 2011, and the conversion of engagement is also disappointing: contrary to expectations, profiles do not lead to real sales. In fact, visitors to social networks are only half as likely to make a purchase as users who find the site through a search engine. The situation is similar when it comes to sales: The former spend only about half as much as visitors to other sites.