Why Fortune Companies are embracing Social Media
June 22, 2009
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!
This even applies to non-profit organizations that are now realizing the huge impact that Social Networks and Social Media in general has on the ability to get their message out to the masses and compete for those hard earned donations in today’s harsh economic situations.
Stay tuned for more information on Non-Profits as we put the finishing touches on a case study that we will publish next month, right here. The site we are going to be taking a closer look at just recently emerged from an over-haul of a static.. ho hum site with few avenues to get their message out, to a new content driven site based on a Word Press platform.
It is now a great working Social Media Site, that is going to be doing a lot of heaving lifting to get their voices heard, draw in the eye-balls and increase their donations and help aid in their ability to obtain Corporate Sponsorships. You can take sneak peek now at Operation Hug-A-Hero.
If your one of those SMB’s that is a bit frustrated at the whole Social thing and want to know how you can get started with your own social media management, checking back here often is one way to get up to speed as we continue ramping up our commitment to educate and post helpful articles like this one.
One of the easiest ways to stay in tune with happenings at Virtual Interactive Systems is to be sure to sign up for our eNews – Updates & RSS Feeds (located at the top right hand side of the page – right under the Video or just click on the link in this article for our RSS News feed ).
Comments