The deal sites are no longer popular with marketers

According to the annual report published by Social Media Examiner, which takes a look at the attitudes and behavior of marketing professionals vis-à-vis the use of social media, deal sites have lost their appeal to marketers. Twitter, however, remains a preferred share channel.

This study from 3025 marketing professionals located primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom, highlights several trends in the use of different spaces and web tools available to them to conduct their campaigns.

According to the report, 80% of marketers surveyed said they did not intend to use deal sites like Groupon (group buying) or LivingSocial in the coming months. These sites are particularly used by different types of businesses to recruit / retain customers and generate store traffic, making them eligible for discount coupons.

Twitter is good
The report highlights other downward trends: like using Foursquare (11% in 2012 against 17% in 2011) and social bookmarking sites (eg Delicious), whose use is down 16% compared to 2011 (26 to 10%).
Twitter, however, still remains an important lever action, 67% of marketers surveyed planning to increase its use.

-The use of social bookmarking sites has plummeted from 26% of respondents in 2011 to just 10% in 2013. De.licio.us, DIGG, Friendfeed, etc., are rapidly falling in favor where marketers are concerned.

(the  most popular bookmarking sites are currently Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit and StumbleUpon.)

Biz-to-Consumer marketers have adopted Facebook FB -2.94% at a greater rate than Biz-to-Biz marketers; however, the opposite is true for LinkedIn. Although Facebook is the most important social platform for a strong majority (67%) of B2C marketers, Facebook and LinkedIn are tied among B2B marketers at 29% each.

67% of marketers plan to increase their Twitter activities. This is a significant majority, but is down slightly from 69% last year and 73% in 2011. Younger marketers are much more likely to use photo sharing sites such as Instagram than their older counterparts.