By Nick Johnson - July 1st, 2014
The next set of data from the forthcoming State of Corporate Social Media briefing have been released and add weight to the argument that corporate adoption of social has slowed
The below is exclusive insight from this year's State of Corporate Social Media Briefing 2014. You can be one of the first to receive this free briefing, simply request a copy here
The overwhelming response to this series is...being underwhelmed.
We’re still seeing that major priorities are marketing and communications (to a surprising extent with communications, which dominates), and the more ‘advanced’ social media applications (customer insights/service and commerce) are some way behind - reflecting a lack of appetite for leveraging social’s ability to evolve those functions.
Indeed, A significant 7% say customer insights from social is ‘not important’, while a worrying 11% say the same about customer service.
While one can understand a significant proportion of our respondents saying that product development isn’t important (there are only so many companies for which this is viable), it’s surprising such a significant number feel that way re such a critical issue as customer service and understanding - particularly in an age where ‘customer centricity’ is about the most popular corporate buzzword out there.
More surprising still is the fact that a frankly enormous 29% of corporate executives say that using social media for employee engagement is unimportant.
While the makeup of a company’s ‘customers’ - and thus the utility of social media in engaging them - can vary (b2b/b2c split being most obvious example) everyone has employees, and the potential for social to engage them, keep them updated, conduct training, share company news, highlight positive stories and surface expertise is surely undeniable.
On the positive side, the vast majority of respondents see the importance of applying social to all of these functions. Even the somewhat specialised application of social for product development has 63% of respondents calling it at least somewhat important.
The above graphs are taken from the 4th Annual State of Corporate Social Media Briefing. The briefing will be available as a free download, you can request a free copy here