Carol Rozwell

During our most recent webinar on how to develop a social media strategy, we took the opportunity to poll the attendees about their initiatives. The three questions we asked are the same ones we used for previous webinars. This lets us draw some conclusions about the progress of social initiatives.

First, the questions and the responses.

Question: how would you characterize your organization’s social media initiative?
14% – We’re trying to figure out what to do, but haven’t implemented anything yet.
14% – We’re experimenting with social media internally.
25% – We’re experimenting with social media externally.
44% – We’re well underway with a number of initiatives.
3% – We’re old pros with social media.
Total responses: 150

Question: what is the top reason your organization is investing in social media?
32% – Strengthen customer relationships
35% – Enhance brand awareness
4% – Share information with business partners
26% – Help people find and work better with each other
3% – Meet CEO or board objectives
Total responses: 141

Question: who is leading your social media initiatives?
31% – Multiple people are leading different initiatives
34% – Marketing
11% – IT
12% – Social media steering committee
12% – Other organizations e.g. HR or PR
Total responses: 136

If you compare the results of the three polling questions to the survey we did just about this time last year, there has been some progress. More organizations are well underway with multiple initiatives (44% vs. 23% in October 2011). The top reasons for investing in social media remain the same: to build brand awareness or strengthen customer relationships (though one could argue these are tightly coupled). There is still the issue of multiple, uncoordinated initiatives and only slight more organizations have created a social media steering committee since last year. However, this year IT is responsible for social media less often.

We remain firm in our conviction that for disparate social media efforts to grow into an efective social business program there needs to be appropirate leadership and attention to organizational change. Based on my audience poll at my Social Business Program Maturity presentation at the most recent PCC Summit, most organizations still underestimate the effort this takes.

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