Meltwater has released its 'State of Social Media 2024' report, revealing that despite nearly half (47%) of Asia-Pacific (APAC) teams expecting social media to play a more significant role this year, budgets are more likely to remain stagnant, rather than increase.

The report, which includes responses from over 2,000 global marketing and communications professionals, also found that APAC marketers (55%) are more likely to view artificial intelligence (AI) as 'somewhat' important to social media, compared to their global counterparts (44%). Nearly two-thirds (64%) of APAC marketers are using AI to create social media copy.

APAC teams found not having a defined social media strategy to be a bigger challenge (37% vs 25% in EMEA and 29% in Americas), despite 34% of respondents having a dedicated social media team. A quarter of APAC teams have a strategy but lack the resources to execute on it, with 51% concerned about employee bandwidth.

In terms of software usage, only 47% of APAC respondents use software to help with scheduling and reporting, compared to 61% globally. However, a larger percentage are interested in pursuing this in 2024.

Meltwater VP ANZ and SEA, Ross Candido said: "Social media is clearly a very important medium for APAC marketers but employee bandwidth to execute seems to be a big challenge. Leveraging technology solutions to help boost efficiency can help address this challenge. AI Integrated software like Meltwater's social media intelligence solution can not only boost the efficiency of a team by creating engaging, high-quality content, it brings the full value of media intelligence to marketers by transforming real time data into relevant insights to measure the impact of social and to inform future strategies."