Marketers need to play by the social media rules
New research shows a lack of knowledge in social media laws, including the use of data and insight. As more brands continue to use social media as an engagement channel could more be done to ensure marketers and research professionals are playing by the rules?
Best practise guidelines should be in place to ensure that brands don’t fall foul of any social media laws, especially when they are using social campaigns, promotions and endorsements as a means of market research by using the data and insight collected via social in any further marketing activity.
The research finds that 52 per cent of respondents actively manage business competitions, promotions and endorsements via the company’s social media profiles but that only 6 per cent adhere to the Advertising Standards Authority regulations and the Cap Code.
Also 66 per cent of social media professionals are not aware of social platform ‘terms of use’ which is important as 46 per cent of companies are concerned by the use of social media and the impact that it can have on their brand.
Social media consultancy Immediate Future conducted the research in collaboration with several expert solicitors. It also finds that while 92 per cent of respondents have some form of professional involvement in social media but more than 68 per cent of respondents say they have basic, beginners or no personal knowledge of social media laws.
For those brands which are using social, the research could be invaluable. The way brands conduct insight, data collection and market research has implications for them, whether this is done over the phone, in person or on social media.
Consumers want to trust a brand online as much as offline and awareness of social media best practice and laws need to be taken into account to avoid damage to reputation or worse the financial risk of court cases.
In other social media research news, Facebook has created its first UK Advisory Board made up of senior brand and agency marketers.
Marketing Week reported that the first topic on the agenda the Board is likely to discuss is UK-centric research to prove the value of Facebook to business’ bottom line and could lead to a UK version of the company’s partnership with Datalogix, whose research found 70 per cent of Facebook ad campaigns led to 3 times or better return on investment, while almost half (49 per cent) showed a return of five times spend.