The Harvard Business Review published the results of a survey of how companies are using social media channels. The report titled “The New Conversation, Taking Social Media from Talk to Action“, provides the results of how 2,100 companies are using social media and distills seven effective habits.
“In the survey, there was a small group of companies — just 12% — who described themselves as effective users. This group comprised a kind of “best practices” segment.” Below is a summary of the key findings from the report that highlight the characteristics that the “effective user” group shared.
- Sixty-three percent of the effective users said they have developed and implemented a social media strategy.
- · They’ve taken an integrated view of social media and have made it another part of their overall marketing strategy, not “shiny object” or fad. They are working toward stated, documented goals that are specific.
- Effective users were TWICE as likely to have a social media budget as compared to the rest of the respondents.
- Effective users are far more likely to use more social media channels — four or more.
- Effective users were much more likely to be fully-leveraging the benefits of social media by using multiple social media channels to:
- · reach customers,
- · learn about customers,
- · research new products,
- · establish user groups among customers,
- · monitor trends, and
- · collect and track customer reviews.
- Effective users are more likely to be:
- · be doing more multi-media sharing,
- · participating in review sites, discussion forums, and blogs, and
- · know where their customers are talking about them on the Web.
- The use of metrics and analytic tools also sets the effective users apart as effective users are measuring their efforts as well as the social conversations about them.
- Finally, this group was also far more likely to integrate their social media monitoring solution with their other marketing solutions. (Again demonstrating an integrated approach to their social media initiative.
