Enterprise social media usage immature - survey

May 29, 2009:Many large companies recognize the importance of social media tools but lack the vision on how to use them in conjunction with long-term initiatives and measure their effectiveness, according to a survey conducted by Vignette.

The survey collected almost 200 responses from companies with median revenue of $US333 million. Fifty percent of the respondents work at companies that have 1,000 employees or more and 62 percent come from B2B organisations.

“Social media today is like the Web was in the 90s – everyone knows they need to use it but they aren’t sure how,” commented Gerardo Dada, senior director of product marketing for Vignette. “As a result, very few companies have a strategy in place, including guidelines, processes and metrics, to succeed long term. The interest and resources are there, but on a tactical level only.”

Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said that Web 2.0 priorities are more important than or as important as traditional priorities. However, only 14 percent have two or more years of experience with using social media and 40 percent of those surveyed have no social media process or strategy in place.

Companies are pumping up their budgets when it comes to social media. Seventy-one percent of those surveyed will increase social media investments in 2009 and the average increase in the investment is 40 percent.

Marketing departments are leading the majority of Web 2.0 initiatives (69%), with IT (12%), HR and PR (11%) close behind.

Only 12 percent of those polled rated their Web 2.0 initiatives as effective.

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