New research from Econsultancy and Adobe reveals that while the majority of large businesses regard social media as a key player within their business strategies, less than a quarter (22 percent) agree that ‘they are able to harness social data’.

The sixth Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing, ‘Managing and Measuring Social’, also shows that 70 percent of marketers across agency and client-side business believe that ‘social media needs to be more rooted in data’.

Based on a survey of more than 650 digital marketers, the report found that many companies are struggling to define objectives for their social activity and to measure success appropriately (around three quarters of client-side respondents agree that measuring the impact of social is ‘very difficult’).

Indeed, only 28 percent of smaller companies and 42 percent of the larger companies surveyed said they measured their performance against defined social media objectives

Neil Morgan, Senior Director, Digital Marketing Solutions, Adobe EMEA, said: “We are excited by the insights revealed in this survey. While it is apparent that the social space is maturing, it is also very clear that there is a need to better manage and measure social media efforts.”