Bazaarvoice just conducted their second annual survey of chief marketing officers (members of the CMO Club) to find out about “their use, expectations and measurement of Social Media.” Their chief finding? Even though CMOs are still struggling to pinpoint how to measure Social Media in 2011 — they’re increasing their use of it because they have found value: consumer insight.
Although the goal is to trade in Social Media metrics like number of fans or followers and use business measurement like revenues or conversion, CMOs are recognizing their ROI may just be in the form of consumer input. Customer ratings and reviews were pointed out as the top social strategies to drive measurable ROI. 93% of CMOs plan to use some form of user-generated content to develop their products and service decisions.
Top forms of user-generated content in 2010 included customer stories (59%), product suggestions or ideas (54%), polling (49%) and customer reviews (47%).
This real-time market research enables companies to perfect their products, services and relationships with their consumers.
Bazaarvoice is a software company that powers customer-generated content on more than 1,000 brand web sites.
