Why Fortune Companies are embracing Social Media

The 2nd week of June the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Social Media Council (SMC) released their first-ever Social Media Survey.

The goal of the Social Networking Software Survey was to obtain industry awareness of how Social Software is being utilized today, as well as to get an understanding of future internal and external social media strategies. However, what they really were after was learning just how mainstream this going Social phenom has affected larger companies.

They surveyed over 3,000 companies in April – May 2009. This included close to half of the Fortune 100 companies. What they discovered during the process was that large companies are embracing social media,with about 40% of the respondents indicating they currently had social media trials underway.

Additionally they found that:

• Over 70 percent of companies surveyed are already using external social networks for collaboration purposes.

• Almost 60 percent of the survey respondents think social networking can have a high impact on brand awareness.

• Of the top emerging technologies, companies surveyed believe external social networks have the most potential value to their respective organizations.

• More than 45 percent of respondents believe social networking can have a high impact on capturing customer insights.

So as a small to medium business owner (SMB), this means that you need to really take a serious look at including Social Media in your marketing strategy, if you are not already doing so.  You can pretty much guarantee that your competition is! Read more