HorizonWatching

Business.com: 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study

Business.com recently released their 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study.   The objective of the study was to assess current trends in the use of social media in North American businesses.  

The results of the study were based on the 2,948 valid responses to Business.com’s survey during August and early September, 2009 and the report provides an interesting view into where businesses are finding value in social media across different activities and sites. 

The report is organized into two sections. The first section discusses how business people utilize social media today to find business-relevant information.  The second section covers corporate social media initiatives, benchmarking experience with social media for business (both respondent and company), top social media activities and how companies judge social media success today.

Highlights

Nearly 65% of respondents reported using social media as part of their normal work routine, including reading blogs, visiting business profiles on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn or using Twitter to find information and/or communicate about business-related matters

Among those using any form of social media to find business-relevant information, the most popular activity is attending webinars or listening to podcasts (69%) followed by reading  ratings/reviews for business products or services (62%). The least popular activities are saving business-related links on social bookmarking sites (28%) and participating in discussions on 3rd party web sites (29%).

Major Findings

• Over 1900 participants in the study indicated that they work for a company involved in social media initiatives. 92% are directly involved in planning or managing these initiatives.
• On average, these individuals spend 18% of their time in any given week working on these initiatives.
• 71% of the companies surveyed have less than two years of experience with social media.
• The average company in the study is currently involved in 7 different social media efforts.
• Top activities include – maintaining company related accounts and profiles on social media sites (70%), followed by monitoring company-related mentions on social media sites (60%) and maintaining one or more company blogs (60%).
• 66% of social media initiatives are driven by marketing, followed by 23% by customer support and 8% by product development departments.
• On average, companies use four different metrics to measure their social media initiatives - web site traffic, engagement with prospects and customers, brand impact – basically awareness and reputation, quantity and quality of leads
• 80% maintain a presence on Facebook.
• 56% have a company account on Twitter.
• A typical company in the study, maintains a presence on three different social media sites. 
• 47% of companies in the study upload content to one or more content sharing sites. So, although they may have a profile on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube, some companies may not be regularly sharing content. Over commitment to many social media initiatives at any one time has been sited by numerous case studies as a driving factor behind poor social media performance.  
• YouTube is the leading business content sharing site; used by 65% of those in the study that share content online.

Report’s Table of Contents

The report table of contents below can give you a feel for the type of information in the report:

• Beyond Chatting with Friends: Social Media as a Business Resource
  • Who Uses Social Media as a Resource for Business Information?
  • Most Popular Social Media Resources for Business
• Most Useful Social Media Resources for Business
• Current State of Corporate Social Media Initiatives
  • Respondent and Company Experience with Business Social Media
  • Top Corporate Social Media Activitie
  • How Companies Judge Social Media Succes
  • Initiative Detail: Managing Business Profiles on Social Media Site
  • Initiative Detail: Participating in Q&A Site
  • Initiative Detail: Using Social Media Monitoring Tool
  • Initiative Detail: Sharing Business Content on Social Media Sites
  • Initiative Detail: Business Content Bookmarking on Social Media Sites

The full report can be downloaded via the following link:  http://www.business.com/info/business-social-media-benchmark-study

Pew Internet: Adults on Social Network Sites, 2005-2009

According to an October 2009 Pew Internet report titled The Democratization of Online Social Networks, 46% of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn.  This is up from 8% in February 2005.

Highlights of the report include:

• 79% of American adults used the internet in 2009, up from 67% in Feb. 2005
• 46% of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 8% in February 2005.
• 65% of teens 12-17 use online social networks as of Feb 2008, up from 58% in 2007 and 55% in 2006.
• As of August 2009, Facebook was the most popular online social network for American adults 18 and older.

Of adult SNS users:

• 73% have a Facebook account
• 48% have a MySpace profile
• 14% have an account on LinkedIn
• 1% each on Yahoo, YouTube, Tagged, Flickr and Classmates.com
• 10-12% are on “other” sites like Bebo, Last.FM, Digg, Blackplanet, Orkut, Hi5 and Match.com

Read more in Amanda Lenhart's presentation, which is available for download on Slideshare.

The Democratization of Online Social Networks

View more presentations from Pew Internet & American Life Project, Pew Research Center.

MS and Google: Searching Social Media

Searching for information is so much a part of my job.  Frequently when on an intense research project, I find myself day dreaming of search keyword string being entered into the Google search bar.  But over the past year, I’m increasingly finding myself using other search engines that crawl the social media sites.  I now have a list of about 15 social search engines that I use depending on what type of information I am looking for.

As social computing technology continues to result in growth of social networking and social media sites, searching for content on all these sites is becoming more and more important.  Social search is the next big thing in search engines and over the last week or so, there have been some big changes in the social search marketplace.

Both Google and Microsoft announced deals to improve their search engines.  Both Microsoft and Google both made deals with Twitter to include tweets in their real-time social search results.  But Microsoft did Google one better and announced it will also include content from Facebook. 

Microsoft’s Bing users will will be able to search Twitter status updates or navigate the most popular topics currently being discussed on Twitter via a tag cloud.  Bing will search the last seven days, of content and will be organized into 1) Tweets and 2) Frequently shared links

Google’s Social Search, still in beta, works off your Google profile (you have to opt-in) and prioritizes results from your friends' Twitter feeds, FriendFeed updates, Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, and Picasa libraries.  For more on Google search, check out this 3 minute video

These announcements signal that the big search engines have recognized the importance of social search to their future. As the social movement continues to grow and people's hunger for real-time content increases, search companies are actively looking to provide the most value and relevant search results.

For more information, here’s some recent articles about social search

• Social Search – Wikipedia
• Google's New Social Search Is A Big Chess Move Against Facebook – ReadWriteWeb
• Real-time search brimming with deals - TheDeal.com
• How High Will Real-Time Search Fly? – NYT
• Google & Bing Announce Real Time Search Deals With Twitter – SEOBook

Google's Top 20 Twitter Accounts

Here’s a list of the top twenty Google Twitter accounts, based on the number of followers that ID has. 

Notes: 

• The following information was pulled on October 20, 2009. 
• #DLSP represents the number of days since last the last post on Twitter.
• The columns might not match up with the column headings all that well.  Seems to depend on the browser.

Category	Account	Description	Followers	Tweets	#DSLP
General	Google	Google's main account	1,780,160	774	0
General	YouTube	for YouTube fans	163,883	1,101	0
General	GoogleReader	from Google's feed reader team	29,952	209	15
Ads	AdSense	for online publishers	29,931	103	5
General	GoogleNews	latest headlines via Google News	24,699	2,333	0
Earth	GoogleMaps	uses, tips, mashups	22,509	534	0
General	Blogger	for Blogger fans	22,248	461	0
General	GoogleVoice	updates & info on Google Voice	21,174	134	7
General	GoogleAtWork	solutions for workplace productivity	18,724	891	0
Developer	GoogleResearch	from Google's research scientists	14,637	66	61
General	GoogleCalendar	user tips & updates	12,972	93	0
Developer	app_engine	web apps run on Google infrastructure	12,880	176	5
Developer	GoogleCode	For Google developer products	10,638	88	6
Developer	GoogleIO	Google's largest annual developer event	8,830	258	0
General	GoogleStudents	news of interest to students	8,819	273	0
Earth	GoogleEarth	updates from the Google Earth team	7,724	130	0
Ads	GoogleAnalytics	insights for website effectiveness	7,552	33	4
Culture	googlejobs	the voice of Google recruiters	7,324	173	1
General	iGoogle	Google's personalized homepage	6,674	89	5
General	GoogleImages	Google visual image search	6,483	28	72

Thoughts On B2B Social Media Adoption Factors and Implications

Just some thoughts on the trend towards social computing and the implications it will have….

Trends Driving The Adoption of Social Media/Social Computing

• Consumerization of IT: Technology is trickling into the enterprise from consumers who are using cutting-edge IT at play – “Web 2.0”
• Multi-Generational Workforce - As older generations (Baby Boomers) exit the workforce, younger – very different ones - (Gen X, Gen Y – a.k.a. Millennials) enter.
• Extreme Competition - Quickening pace of globalization creates both new markets and new competitors
• Next Wave of the Web - Web 2.0 is representing a wave of intense innovation with rich participatory models & programmability.
• Social Networks - Technology & services that create unique profiles, map out relationships, & leverage personal connections.
• Innovation Networks - New business model that enables firms to match their demand for innovation with global talent
• Next Era of the Digital Age - Connecting & monitoring of products & devices.
• Virtual Worlds - Virtual realities (Second Life) have peaked in hype.  Do they still represent a real-world opportunity?

Audiences Are Taking Control Over The Messages

• Audiences don’t always trust traditional messages and channels
  • Dismissive of “corporate spin,” the “organizational voice”
  • Credibility shifting to individual voices -- personal influence is personal!
• Audiences are taking control of the message and the medium
  • Individuals are participating and becoming highly influential
  • Organizational role becoming that of influencer as much as authority
  • Dialogue is now a critical element for outreach
  • Does your product do what you say? Is it a promise kept or broken?
  • Transparency is everything.
  • Audiences have more choices than ever before
  • There are about 23,000 daily newspapers and news periodicals around the world. 
  • There are a few hundred million blogs worldwide

Implications for Marketing Strategists

• An active conversation is being held about your brand in the marketplace.  All brands should want (and need) to participate in and influence the conversation taking place about products and services.
• Online communities are plentiful, large and efficient.  Representation ranges from Business Partners to enterprise-focused technology buyers and influencers to media to analysts to other bloggers
• Social media tools allow us to hear, first-hand, from our clients and prospective clients.  The opportunity to listen and collect intelligence is immense. Potential to influence product requirements and functions, GTM strategy, sales, support, etc.
• The potential for community among loyalists is profound. Customers talk to one another.  Empower them to be your best advocates. They are your living case studies.

Key Steps in any Social Media Strategy

• Monitor. Listen to the market conversation to better understand your current position in the marketplace. Understand what the marketplace is (or isn’t) saying about your brand, product, service, etc. Start to understand the tone and impact of that conversation. Begin identifying areas of opportunity for helping shape that conversation and to gather valuable market intelligence
• Identify and Engage. Identify and engage key influencers who are influencing the market conversation around your brand, product, or service. Establish some prioritization as to who is impacting the market conversation the most. Develop strategies for engaging those influencers through social media capabilities. Establish enduring and mutual productive relationships with the influencers. Empower their advocacy of your product or capability
• Maximize Distribution. Maximize distribution and impact of key digital marketing assets. Ensure maximum portability and utilization of those assets. Ensure optimal exposure and forward mobility of key marketing messages into the marketplace. Share location of assets with all stakeholders to ensure the widest distribution of the central page and its associated assets.
• Empower Advocacy. Build and foster brand loyalists and empower them to advocate on behalf of your brand. Build a sense of community among your brand loyalists. Empower those loyalists to better advocate to other key constituents on behalf of your brand, products, and services.
• Measure to Understand the Impact. Have some way of identifying measurable progress. Quantify the return on your social media investment. Understanding the impact of social programs enables you to benchmark against future efforts.

Working Smarter: Building a Smarter Enterprise

A couple weeks ago, IBM and InformationWeek sponsored a webinar, Optimize Business Performance by Building a Smarter Enterprise, to explore the topic of how companies are improving business processes and workflows in order to become a smarter, more agile enterprise. 

You can view the video replay of the webinar.  You need to register first by going to Optimize Business Performance by Building a Smarter Enterprise. 

A featured speaker on the webinar was James Surowiecki, world-renowned business strategist and author of the best-selling book The Wisdom of Crowds.  Also on the call was Jon Iwata, Chief Marketing Officer at IBM.  Both of them spoke during the one hour videocast.

The way a company’s employees get their work done is a critical lever in optimizing business performance.  But we all know you can improve business performance just by working harder or spending more on resources.  You need to figure out how you can make your workforce work ‘smarter’.   The secret is to create a collaborative and connected business environment that empowers people, embraces change and ultimately increases productivity.

Some facts about the way we work:

• The time we spend just looking for the right expertise and information to do our jobs adds up to two hours in a typical day
• A typical organization loses 5.3 hours per employee per week due to inefficient processes impacting how they work
• Two-thirds of people believe there are colleagues who can help them do their jobs better...but they don't know how to find them

To work smarter, we’ll need smarter organizations — enhancing and benefiting from their people’s expertise, enterprise and creativity, rather than inhibiting them.  Transforming the collaborative infrastructure and processes of our places of work will enable people to take advantage of the full scope of an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent planet.  And the good news is that many organizations around the world are showing the way.  The rest of us need to pay attention to these innovative companies and learn from their case studies…then apply what we have learned to our own companies.

For more on the Smarter Work topic, check out IBM’s Smarter Work website here.

Study On Social Media Use By Fortune 100 Companies

An interesting study released from an analysis by Burson-Marsteller and Proof Digital of the Fortune 100's use of Key Social Media Channels, including Twitter, Facebook Fan Pages and Blogs. 

The results of the study shows that Twitter surpassed blogging here in 2009 as the social media platform of choice – at least among the Fortune 100.   The study looked at the top 100 companies in terms of revenue as compiled by Fortune Magazine's annual Fortune 500 to understand how active those compa nies were on three key social media: Twitter, Facebook and Blogs.  .

Some highlights from the study include

• 54% of the Fortune 100 were using Twitter to reach out directly to stakeholders, 32% were using a blogs, and 29% were actively using a Facebook Fan Page to engage.  
• 21% of companies are using only one of the three surveyed social media channels, and of those companies, 76% are using Twitter over Facebook and Blogs.
• 40% of companies are not using any social media channels, while 21% are using two channels, and 17% are using all three.
• 94% of Fortune 100 Twitter accounts distribute company news updates and announcements while fully 67% are at least partially serving a customer service function.
• Reasons companies use the three social media sites differs.
  • Twitter is most often used for news and announcements (94%), customer service (67%), promotions and deals (57%), and job postings (11%).
  • Facebook fan pages are more consumer focused, with promotions, product information, and philanthropy and community service announcements.
  • Blog content falls into categories of current projects, external initiatives, and community involvement.

For more information, see this post on Burson-Marteller’s site.  And there’s a pdf file available on Slideshare of the report findings:  “Social Media Use by Fortune 100 Companies”.  

The Boom In Niche Social Networks

There appears to be a growing trend in the social networking industry. Marketers appear to be targeting site’s with smaller, niche memberships more so now than ever before. 

According to eMarketer, during 2008 advertisers spent $920M on advertising within social networks.  Of that $920M, eMarketer says 8.2 percent went to niche social networks.  In 2009, this year it is estimated that spending will increase to $2.1 billion, and the take for smaller networks will rise to 10%.

To me this trend towards niche social networks mirrors the explosion in niche magazines that we saw the last 20-30 years.  You can buy magazines on almost any type of topic today and the reason you can is that advertisers like to be able to reach very unique targeted market segments.

My thought is that if you wanted to sell a $250,000 Rolex watch instead of advertising on a general Facebook page, it would probably be better to advertise on a social networking site like  ASmallWorld.  ASmallWorld is a niche social network with a membership of around 300,000 wealthy individuals.

Here’s some examples of niche social networks.

• 85 Broads  -  Career women who attended a select list of leading universities
• ArtBreak  - artist community for sharing and selling artwork.
• ASmallWorld - By invitation only, for celebrities and the business elite
• BeGreen - a community that aims to generate environmental awareness for users.
• beRecruited - a dedicated online community for sportpersons and coaches.
• Blackplanet - connections between African Americans
• BottleTalk –  a wine lover’s community
• Blogtronix – promotes corporate social networking, enterprise 2.0 and wikis.
• CafeMom - networking site for mothers
• CarGurus – An automobile community website
• Change – a nonprofit social networking website
• ChangingThePresent – A nonprofit fund raising community
• CompanyLoop – An online co-working community for global businesses.
• Decorati – An interior designer community enabling users to post items for sale and for exchange.
• Dogster   For dog lovers everywhere
• DoMyStuff – for working professionals looking to find online assistants.
• Doostang – An invite only career community for professionals.
• Fast Pitch – for entrepreneurs who want to market their business.
• Gaia  For the socially conscious crowd
• GLEE.com   For the gay and lesbian community
• iKarma Inc. – providing customer feedback for organizations and professionals.
• ImageKind – for professional artists.
• Jambo – connect with your neighborhood friends.
• Lawyrs – A professional social networking community for lawyers.
• mediabistro.com – for professionals in content or creative industry.
• MilitaryPlanet  - For members of the military
• MyCatSpace – for lovers of cats
• MyDogSpace – for lovers of dogs
• New England Venture Network— Social networking for venture capitalists
• Pairup.com – connects business travelers assisting them to travel together.
• Shelfari - A site for book lovers and authors
• ShoutLife - A Christian social network
• Uniteddogs – Another side for dog owners.
• Ultrafan  For sports fans
• vSocial – a video based social networking platform

This is just a sample.  The environment is like the Wild West where these networks are popping up everywhere.  Some will stick, others will fail.  The ones that stick could eventually be winners in grabbing future niche advertising dollars.  As I mentioned above, if I was a niche magazine publisher today, I would be building and promoting a social networking platform for the readers of my magazine.

McKinsey's View on Web2.0 and Beyond

McKinsey Quarterly had an interesting article this month that talked about how companies should prepare now for when web 2.0 transitions all the way to web 3.0.  The article, Managing beyond Web2.0 pointed out that individuals are increasingly in a position of control on the Internet.  They are demanding the type of information they want on websites and how that information is delivered.   The net is that businesses need to adapt to disruption that the shift to digital media and social networks is causing in order to stay relevant and manage their brand. 

McKinsey believes that the shift to the digital media will force marketers to evolve in order to survive.  The article discusses a model McKinsey is promoting called LEAD (listen, experiment, apply, develop) as a way to create a road map to help companies survive this constant change in the online environment.

Here is a quick summary of the LEAD model

• Listen.   Have a formal process to monitor and analyze what its customers are saying about the corporate brand and operations online and then use this information as an early-warning system.
• Experiment. Don’t just monitor social media — engage customers in conversations by using the novel tools of Web 2.0.   As an example, try engaging customers through collaborative efforts in order to conceive new offerings and ad campaigns.
• Apply.  Next take the experiments and apply them.  To make it easier to reach out to customers, optimize your Web site so that it connects fluidly with online communities and social-media sites.
• Develop.  Integrate the social media marketing into the company’s marketing mix.  For example, rather than simply buying ads on MySpace or LinkedIn, make interactive Web 2.0 elements part of all marketing programs.

McKinsey says the key is to understand your customer’s online behaviors in order to take advantage of Web 2.0 and what’s beyond Web 2.0.

I like the LEAD model in concept, especially because it stresses Listening as the first step.  I see too many experimental efforts being launched that have not been designed to take into account listening.  The other point I feel gets lost is that there needs to be more of a focus on engaging external stakeholders in conversations.  So while there needs to be a focus on listening, there should also be an equal focus on responding to what is being heard.  The worst thing you can do is to listen and hear what is being said, but not respond. You need to engage in active conversations.

You can check out McKinsey’s article out at Managing beyond Web2.0 .

Gartner’s Latest List of Disruptive Technologies

Every Wednesday, Gartner does a free webinar on a variety of topics.  Earlier this month, they had a presentation titled "Technology Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore."   I attended the webinar and took some notes.

The webinar provided attendees with Gartner’s latest list of disruptive technologies.  According to Gartner, a disruptive technology is one which drives major change in business processes or revenue streams, consumer behavior or spending, or IT industry dynamics.  It’s important that companies have processes in place to identify the disruptive technologies that will impact their business and develop plans to address these disruptions. 

Gartner regularly publishes disruptive technology lists.  Back in October 2007, I posted Gartner:  Five Disruptive Trends, which was a summary of their current list at that time, which included the following five trends:

1. Web2.0
2. Software as a Service
3. Global-class computing
4. The Consumerization of IT
5. Open-Source Software

You can read my October 2007 post Gartner:  Five Disruptive Trends for more on that Gartner list.

So I was interested attending the webinar and seeing what was on Gartner’s list this time.  Here is a summary of Gartner’s July 2009 list of the top 10 technologies that will drive significant disruption over the next five years.

1. Virtualization.   Virtualization helps reduce the number of servers used, decreasing power consumption.
2. Data Deluge.  According to Gartner, the amount of data produced around the world will grow by 650% over the next few years, and 80% of it will be unstructured.
3. Energy & Green IT.   We need to come up with regulations for technology and power consumption. 
4. Consumerization & Social Software.  Consumerization, Social media, social computing, and social networking will change the way we work.   See my April 16, 2009 post on The Consumerization of IT  or my March 12, 2009 post Social Computing as a Disruptive Force for more on this trend.
5. Unified Communications.    Unifying communications will allow users to route communications to their preferred device and change that device preference whenever they need to.  
6. Mobile  Mobile devices 10 years ago were just phones.  Today, they are little computers. Tomorrow, it may be the primary device employees use to get their work done.  
7. Complex Resource Tracking  This is all about the need to manage our networks more efficiently
8. System Density.   We are going to need more and more servers.  That's going to increase power and cooling requirements, even as the price of the hardware continues to drop.
9. Mashups and Enterprise Portals.  Employees will increasingly need and demand new ways to see information. 
10. Cloud Computing. Cloud-computing can certainly save you a lot of time and money, but it will cost a lot of time to make the switch to the cloud happen.  I spent a bunch of time researching cloud computing.  For more information, see this post, which also contains links to other cloud computing posts I have done.

A quick comparison of the 2007 list with the list today, we see that Consumerization of IT/Social Software made both lists.  And we also see that Saas/Cloud Computing made both lists.   Both these trends are important disruptive trends, for sure.

For more information, or to download the replay and a pdf of the presentation, go to this Gartner website: Webinar Wednesday Series: Technology Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore