Communication Management - with Yesterday's Tools?

TLDR: A new Forrester report shows how yesterday's social media management tools are failing to meet today's challenges. Content strategy and performance measurement are the teeth of social media marketing.

Freely available Forrester Research analyses are often among the less exciting content that market research brings to light.

The Forrester Wave™: Social Relationship Platforms, Q2 2015 (found on Percolate's website) is a different story.

Rarely have I read such a neutral, accurate and explosive description of the problems currently facing the communications management of large companies.

One of the largest IT market researchers has once again published a comparative study of the tools for "Social Relationship Management", has chosen winners ("Leaders") and losers ("Risky Bets") according to a tried and tested method - and has garnished his report on the market for tools that are not exactly available for Hubert Burda's "lousy pennies" with statements that make you, well, think.

What exactly is it about? The study examined tools that manage the "most social relationship marketing tasks," i.e., that support the editorial control process, from planning the publications to evaluating the results. The focus of the tools is the support of large companies / enterprises / transnational players. According to Forrester, a company of this type operates ø 55 channels on Facebook, Twitter and co. and involves ø 45 employees with all kinds of tasks. There is indeed a lot to coordinate.

This coordination can be supported with the following investigated tools (*winners):

  • Adobe
  • Expion
  • Falcon Social
  • Hootsuite
  • Oracle
  • Percolate*
  • Salesforce
  • Shoutlet
  • Spredfast
  • Sprinklr*
  • Sprout Socia

Here is the overall result:

srp1

And here are some telling quotes about the state of the social media market:

After all...

  • 64% of the interviewed social marketers actually get what they were promised by the sales department in terms of functionality (i.e. all the functions required to create many "branded channels" in social media with content, monitor response and maintain relationships with influencers/multipliers).

But :

  • "In fact, a 2014 Forrester survey found that most marketers wouldn't recommend their SRP to a peer"

That's right: very few communicators would encourage colleagues from other companies to buy their own tool. Why?

  • "Most (tools) solve the problems of yesteryear."
  • "But few solve today's most pressing challenges."

These are clear statements. Which is the core problem:

  • "SRP clients say measuring performance is their biggest social relationship marketing challenge - and they tell us their vendors do little to provide solutions"

Here is the overview of the most pressing challenges:

srp2

Measuring success is therefore the first and biggest challenge in communications departments.

The creation and distribution of the right content the second.

If both challenges are not supported by "yesterday's tools," as Forrester puts it, what should communicators and marketers do?
Anyone who reads the Forrester report correctly will understand: Don't buy a tool.

We'll find out what .companion recommends instead in the next post.
(Cliffhanger)