Research shows just 6% of companies value listening online

For all the progress being made in social media and the efforts companies are making to include it in their organisations as a central business practice, it’s also worth taking a step back and gaining some context around how much companies really value their activity and how much they’re willing to invest in it – both through time and money. Recent research commisioned by Dell (where 200 U.S. companies were surveyed) shows that we may still have further to come than we think, as they found that just 6 per cent claim their online listening activities are central to their organisation :

This is in stark contrast to the 98 per cent of companies surveyed, who are adopting social media at some level:

All interest and no action?

Something is clearly going wrong if over 98 per cent of companies are making use of social media at some level, yet just 6 per cent value their online listening activities (surely the staple of social media activity?) as in some way integral to their organisation. This is not to say that I’m making the argument that social media should be valued more highly than traditional media, research practices etc., but that it is deserving of its place among them. The fact is that you can’t afford for social media not to be at the centre of your organisation, because it is undoubtedly at the centre of your customer’s lives, as a daily activity in many cases.

This trend is worrying for social media, as it means it will be hard for it to progress beyond the ‘fun’, experimental phase, to reach its true potential for joining up individuals and organisations, and indeed for it to reach the full advantages it can offer businesses by providing keen insight into what your customers actually want and what they are doing online. With this in mind, it is worth looking at what is preventing companies from fully embracing social media. Predictably, budget is coming up top, as many companies now realise social media isn’t as free as they thought it was. But what’s interesting is that availability of talent is also stated as a factor:

Now there certainly seems to be no shortage of social media aficionados, so is the discrepancy coming in the fact that there is a split between those knowledgable in social media, and those in the upper echelons in an organisation, that are responsible for marketing budgets and business initiatives?

Social media is no doubt, if in fact inherently, a grass roots media. It is also embraced more readily by younger people; a simple by-product of their being in the digital natives category. These are not the groups however that you would typically find in the core decision-making areas of a business. So what smart companies need to do is invest in training, to marry these two and truly reach the potential of social media activity.

This too, should go both ways. It is not just about teaching those already higher up how to use social media and really understand it, but also progress those who have a more inherent understanding of social media and actively use it in their personal lives, to advance in an organisation and become a key member of the decision making teams. In this way, social media will advance beyond the interest stage, to be in a position where companies can claim it is an integral part of their organisation.

You can see the full infographic below, or click on the image to enlarge.