Tag Archives: research social_media

Social Network Adoption Races Ahead

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Awareness, Inc., which has been in the social media software market for several years, has just come out with a new research report on enterprise adoption of Web 2.0. There are some interesting findings that I wanted to share with you. You can download the entire report after filling out a short registration form.

My basic take-away is that social media tools are ripping through the enterprise with amazing speed. Whether used internally, externally with open enrollment or externally with invitation-only enrollment, social networks are proliferating as business tools. Some highlights:

  • The number of organizations that allow employees to use social networks for business purposes has increased dramatically to 69% in 2008 from 37% last year;
  • More than six in 10 companies are using social media to build and promote their brands, improve communication and increase consumer engagement;
  • There has been a fivefold increase in the percentage of employees who use popular social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn for business purposes, from 15% in 2007 to 75% this year;
  • While only a tiny percentage of organizations are currently using internal communities, one in three plans to use them in the future;
  • A quarter of respondents say their companies are planning to deploy external-facing communities, which is double last year’s total;
  • Some 37% of organizations plan to focus communities on specialty areas where they can provide focused business value;
  • More than 40% of respondents report using one or more of the following tools: user groups, tags, communities, blogs, social networking and videos;
  • The most popular internal tools are social networks, blogs and wikis, with adoption rates of between 50% and 55%;
  • Seven in 10 respondents say their companies plan to deploy external blogs.
One of the most notable trends this research reveals is the rapid acceptance of social networking not only for marketing and customer support, but also for employee communications. When you consider that Facebook was barely known outside of the academic realm just two years ago, the acceptance of this technology for internal knowledge management is remarkable.

I’m also intrigued by the findings that seven in 10 businesses allow employees to use social media during business hours. This is a big change in corporate attitude. In the first couple of years of social media, businesses moved slowly to permit employees to speak outside the company walls. There were fears about people revealing company secrets or saying inappropriate things in public forums. Those fears appear to have largely melted away.

The lack of horror stories combined with the powerful utility of features likeLinkedIn’s Answers forum are clearly overwhelming these reservations. It turns out that when you give people the freedom to speak on behalf of the company and combine that freedom with clear guidelines about what’s appropriate to say, the vast majority do the right thing. This is inspiring and affirming. It may be an unanticipated benefit of social media acceptance, but it is a very welcome one.

Caveats: Any research conducted over the Internet needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The Awareness survey accumulated responses from 160 people, of whom 27.5% were from large companies and 40% were at a management level. Awareness says statistical accuracy is +/- 7%. Awareness also has a vested interest in promoting acceptance of social networks. However, the company used an independent research partner, Equation Research, to conduct the survey and I don’t think it has any incentive to fudge the results.

Draft Chapters of My New Book Now Available

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It wouldn’t be fitting to attempt to write a book about social media without seeking feedback from readers, so I’ve started posting the draft chapters from my forthcoming book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, online for your review and comment. The introduction and first four chapters are available at www.ssmmbook.com and I would be pleased to have your input! The entire book – consisting of 10 to 11 chapters and about a half-dozen “vignettes,” will be posted during the next three weeks.

I posted drafts of my first book as blog entries, but this time I’ve selected a wiki from Wetpaint.com. With the wiki approach, you can actually edit the text and make changes as you see fit. I’ll consider all contributions for inclusion in the final manuscript, which is due to the publisher on May 1. If you care to make significant contributions, you’ll be credited with a byline or credit line.

The blog approach worked wonders with New Influencers. While I didn’t get a lot of changes, I got plenty of positive feedback that gave me encouragement to forge ahead. Please be brutally honest in your edits. This book will work best if it reflects the wisdom of all of you, which most certainly dwarfs my own.

Please tell us how you use social media

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The Society For New Communications Research, of which I am a research fellow, has launched an important project to explore changes to the media and communications landscape resulting from social media and how organizations adopting social media programs are identifying and addressing the phenomenon of the “new influencer.” (As far as I know, any relationship between the title of this survey and that of my book is purely coincidental!)

Two anchor elements of this research are surveys of marketers and users of social media. Please take the survey! The more response we get, the better we can share with everyone the current state of social media awareness and usage in organizations.

If you’re a PR or marketing professional, please take this survey first.

If you use blogs or other social media in any context, please take this survey.

The results will be paired with case studies and analysis and presented in a package underwritten by the Institute for Public Relations and Wieck Media.

Social Media is real in the Inc. 500

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Two researchers at the University of Massachusetts has just published an interesting study documenting that small business is far along the learning curve in awareness and usage of social media.

In their summary report, The Hype is Real: Social Media Invades the Inc. 500 Eric Mattson and Nora Ganim Barnes report that 42% of the Inc. 500 companies they interviewed claim to be “very familiar” with tools like social networks, blogs and podcasts. A third of the companies use message boards and one in five blogs.

Perhaps the biggest news is that 26% of the small businesses say social media is “very important” to their business/marketing strategy. With less than 5% of the Fortune 500 blogging, you can assume that small businesses are way out front in this area.

Updates and analysis to the survey of 121 members of the Inc. 500 list will be published as the year goes along.

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The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School has released its sixth annual “Surveying the Digital Future” report and the findings validate the momentum of social media communities. Among the highlights:

  • More than a fifth of online community members take some kind of offline action related to the community.
  • Two-thirds of people who are active in social causes online say they were unfamiliar with those causes before learning about them online.
  • People reported meeting an average of 1.6 people in person whom they originally met online.
  • “Almost all users report that the Internet has no effect on the time spent with close friends or family face-to-face.”

That last point is important because online communities are frequently criticized for making people less socially interactive. In fact, 43% respondents to the survey said the Internet has increased the number of people they stay in contact with.

I expect this last number to grow as social media proliferates. The first decade of the Web was mostly a read-only affair. With one in eight Americans now maintaining a website, you can expect interaction to drive the next phase of growth. The belief that the Internet makes people more isolated is a myth.