A new study released by Digital Brand Expressions shows that 78% of the corporate respondents use social media while only 41% say that have a strategic plan that guides their use of the social web.
Yesterday in my Online Media Daily newsblast from MediaPost, there was a story reviewing the top-line findings from this survey of 100 companies in May 2010. You can review the full article at http://tinyurl.com/32otfnk. The report is aptly titled “Social Media Without a Parachute.” You can download a copy of the report by going to http://www.digitalbrandexpressions.com. Once there, you’ll have to fill out a brief form, and then you’ll get a link emailed to you that you can use to download your copy of the report.
Here was one interesting finding from the report:
“Surprisingly, even for the firms that do have a strategic plan in place, only 29% reported distributing policies and/or communications protocols to employees. This leaves the majority of organizations exposed to problems arising from employees saying the wrong things in the wrong ways to the wrong people at the wrong time.” (Source: DBE Corporate Social Media Report, June 2010)
Some other key findings from the study:
- 88% of firms surveyed agree that it is important to have a strategic social media communications plan in place.
- Only 16% of respondents reported that HR/Personnel is involved in strategic social media planning. By way of comparison, 94% involve marketing and 71% involve PR.
- Of firms doing social media planning, 71% have set up metrics/tracking methods to measure ROI of social media activities. Another 74% have researched how competitors and stakeholders are using social media.
- Of firms doing social media planning, only 45% have prepared and distributed social media protocols. Only 39% have distributed social media policies to employees – guidelines regarding their general use of social media for personal and professional use.
Again, I encourage you to download a copy of their report for yourself. This is not surprising information, but it certainly does confirm the perspective that businesses are failing to apply social media in a strategic and integrated manner. About a year ago, Mark Shelley and I wrote an article for Healthcare Marketing Advisor on the importance of developing a strategic social media marketing plan. I believe it is still available on their website (http://tinyurl.com/26yy424). I also wrote a post about the subject that can be found at http://tinyurl.com/nde4ko.
Post by Dan Dunlop, The Healthcare Marketing Community & Blog
