The State of Social Media for Businesses in 2010 as We Head into 2011

SmartBrief Inc. and market research firm Summus, Ltd. have recently published the “The State of Social Media for Business 2010” report which discusses the impact of social media in today’s business world. The report also uncovers various aspects of how businesses across various industry verticals are leveraging social media and why it has surpassed all expectations in terms of the results accomplished.

In this post, I walk through the key findings of the SmartBrief report and present my opinion on how the adoption of social media is likely to change in the next couple of years.

SmartBrief Report Findings

The SmartBrief survey spanned 6,000 respondents across businesses of various sizes, industries and verticals. In a nutshell, SmartBrief report re-confirms a well-known belief that businesses are now more comfortable than ever with social media. Social Media is changing the business world for good.

The key stats of SmartBrief report include

• Social Media is still an emerging trend in the business world and the best is yet to come. Most businesses had their first taste of social media in the last 13-18 months.
• Businesses prefer to focus on 5 main social platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn and YouTube. The adoption for other social networks is quiet low amongst the business fraternity.
• Brand Building remains the primary reason driving social media adoption in the business world. The other benefits of social media for businesses include community building, increased website traffic, customer service and new business opportunities.
• Communications, Advertising and Marketing Agencies are the verticals which have embraced social media with open arms. Social media adoption rate in these verticals is much higher than that in other industries.
• Most businesses are willing to try out social media for a couple of years before committing/ abandoning it in the long-term.
• Most businesses adopt the do-it-yourself approach for social media rather than seeking the services of a social media expert/ agency.
• Lack of management support and confidentiality concerns are the biggest hindrances to large-scale social media adoption in the business world.
• Less than 15% of businesses measure the ROI for their social media efforts. I’ve highlighted this concern several times in the past and I continue to be concerned with the current situation. Here are my guidelines on how businesses can measure their social media ROI.
• Majority of businesses still lack confidence in their social media strategy. Building an effective social media ain’t any rocket science. You can do it in these 5 simple steps.

My Opinion

IMO, the report beautifully sums up the status quo of social media adoption in the business world including the opportunities, threats, gains and the challenges ahead. While there are some dark clouds concerning confidentiality, privacy and ignorance, I can see a silver lining around the horizon as well.

I’ve always maintained that it’s crucial for a business to measure the ROI of their social media efforts. If you don’t measure the outcome, you’d never know if it was worth the effort or not. I believe that biggies of social media world (aka Facebook, Twitter) need to reform the confidentiality and privacy aspects to propel its mass adoption in the business community.

Does your business have an active social media presence? In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges to using social media for your business? Please share your social media experience by leaving a comment below this post.