Comments for Report: Nearly 70% of Businesses Allow Social Media Usage

Report: Nearly 70% of Businesses Allow Social Media Usage

2008-09-16T02:18:39Z

A new report about Enterprise adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, by Awareness, Inc., shows that employers are increasingly allowing staff to use social media applications in working hours. Awareness puts the figure at 69 percent of businesses in 2008, up from 37 percent last year.

It's the latest in a string of reports this year - from Awareness, Forrester and others - which provide data about the growth of web 2.0 in the enterprise. It'll be a $4.6 Billion industry by 2013, according to Forrester. More of Awareness' findings below...

]]> Despite the positive stats, Awareness sounds a note of caution: some employers still have concerns about social media. The report notes that "employers who do not allow employees to use social media sites at work cite fears including loss of productivity (65.7 percent), lack of security (45.7 percent) and the fear of having inappropriate content posted (42.9 percent)." However, Awareness says that "these views are fading." Although not enough to stop some businesses from monitoring social media use "with strong manual and automatic moderation tools." 28% of businesses monitor usage in this way.

Other findings from Awareness:

Employers are finding the benefits of using social media: 63 percent are using social media to build and promote their brand, 61 percent are using it to improve communication and collaboration, and 58 percent are using it to increase consumer engagement;
75 percent of employees are already using social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn for business purposes, up 15 percent from 2007;
Use of internal-facing communities is on the rise with 6 percent of organizations already reporting they deployed internal-facing communities, while 33 percent indicate their organization plans to implement internal-facing social media initiatives;
Similarly, external-facing communities are increasing: 27 percent of respondents said their companies were planning to deploy external-facing communities while only 13 percent indicated their organizations already have external-facing communities;
Online communities directed at specific interests and groups of people allow for more targeted marketing techniques and better results so for this reason 37 percent of organizations have specific areas of focus for their communities.

Finally, it's interesting to note that enterprises see video as the number 1 web 2.0 tool. Google will be pleased to see that, given the recent release of Google Video for Businesses.

Comment from Paul W. Swansen on 2008-09-15

2008-09-16T03:22:59Z

70% of those polled?

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2008-09-15

2008-09-16T04:05:00Z

obviously :-)

Comment from Brad Mays on 2008-09-15

2008-09-16T04:07:17Z

Companies are slowly realizing that these social tools are easier to use, and that more people (employees) are using them. And, there is actually a business benefit to embracing them.

Comment from Kevin Johnson on 2008-09-15

2008-09-16T04:10:48Z

... and approximately 30% of business social media users must wire around the damage.

Comment from Free Ads on 2008-09-15

2008-09-16T04:41:11Z

This does not make sense. 46% are using blogs and only 36% are using RSS. That means 10% blogs don't have RSS. Do these people really know what a blog is? A blog without RSS is unfathomable. Not a blog in my vocabulary

Comment from Wayne Smallman on 2008-09-16

2008-09-16T10:12:16Z

A lot of the things these organizations are beginning to consider as business tools existed long before buzzwords like Web2.0 and Social Media popped into common vocabulary.

Most of these things can be achieved using good old-fashioned forums, which are tried & tested.

Some of the more recent stuff like Facebook are a trickier proposition because there aren't the same tools to control permissions like they would with their other internal resources.

I think that might be something Facebook (specifically) want to look into, which wouldn't be too difficult; allow businesses to set up groups for their staff join, which then limits their activities during working hours and adds approval and moderation options for key staff...

Comment from Zee on 2008-09-16

2008-09-16T11:27:49Z

God i love that first comment...

Comment from Ben Ruedlinger on 2008-09-16

2008-09-16T13:06:21Z

This definitely confirms what we have been seeing with regards to video. I am with a company called Wistia which provides secure and measurable video sharing for companies. In our discussions with customers and prospects, we find that companies are using significantly more video than people generally expect. The applications they are using video for include everything from training, sales, marketing, customer support, and even clinical trials.

Wistia has found that if we can make video easier to use for our customers and make the results of the video measurable, this can significantly speed adoption across the organization. Wistia makes video measurable by providing comprehensive tracking of user behavior and engagement while watching the video. With video tracking, you can easily tell which parts of the new product demo your sales prospect watched multiple times or whether Bob down the hall watched all of his required training. To see a one minute overview on our Video Engagement Tracking, click here.

While Google has focused on helping someone share the funny video of your office mate with your internal team, Wistia focuses on helping companies share their high-value messsages with their team, company, and customers while making the whole process measurable. We believe that making video easy to use and making the results of the video measurable are the key things which will continue to drive the expansion of video within the enterprise.

Comment from Craig on 2008-09-16

2008-09-16T14:53:49Z

It's no surprise to see those numbers and I expect them to grow even more over the next few years. Only the more traditional companies will be hesitant to allow employees to use social networks, but as they see the positive implications that can arise if used in a responsible manner, they will jump on the bandwagon.

Craig
www.budgetpulse.com

Comment from California Winning Lotto on 2008-09-16

2008-09-16T18:15:23Z

the web is changing again is just a natural movement...

Comment from Robert on 2008-09-16

2008-09-16T20:01:48Z

Companies are finally realizing the benefit of social media. More and more business professionals are adapting to the social space and engaging with users,websites and the tools provided. Eventually enterprise and large businesses will adapt to the social web technology.

Comment from Guillaume Cohen on 2008-09-18

2008-09-18T19:03:50Z

There's a bunch of companies adding video to their collaboration platforms and communities. Check out this video of a Sun Microsystem CTO at Office 2.0 describing how they enabled all their employees to create video and learn from each other:
http://www.office20.com/docs/DOC-1127

Comment from mike ashworth on 2008-09-20

2008-09-20T18:14:22Z

Interesting post.

I'm often fascinated when I read about Companies deploying external facing communities.

To be honest, communities generally exist anyway and I do feel that whilst they may have good intentions some of these Companies are looking to control the conversatiosn taking place by asking the people to "join" this new community.

People will talk about Brands they love or loath wherever they like. If a Company is lucky, that conversation will be taking place somewhere online (as opposed to a coffee shop) so that it can be discovered with the many tools available to monitor such conversations.

The other comment that interested me was as follows

"Online communities directed at specific interests and groups of people allow for more targeted marketing techniques..."

I cant help thinking that they want to entice these people into this external facing "Community", much like sheep into a pen, and then they'll use traditional broadcasting (read monologue) methods of Marketing on them.

I suggest that