News

Business models are now more social

25/10/2012

By Daniel Hunter

Research released by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and global marketing and technology agency, LBi, investigates the extent to which UK businesses have reshaped their structure and processes for social media.

The research was conducted by YouGov and consisted of an online survey of over 600 senior managers at UK consumer businesses across retail, finance, travel, manufacturing, telecoms and pharmaceutical sectors.

In the past 12 months 55% of the sample said their company had made changes in order to become more social. However there is still some confusion as to where social media should sit within organisations and who should be responsible for managing the overall strategy.

Worryingly, 45% claimed they had not adapted their business strategies to become more social. The research revealed that in larger sized companies just 15% of CEOs are responsible for managing their social strategies compared to 29% in SMEs. Even more surprisingly a significant amount (13%) of respondents said this responsibility didn’t sit with anyone.

The research showed that 45% of marketing and sales departments are using the medium to raise awareness of their brand but only 28% are using it to actually interact with their consumers, suggesting that the core benefits of the two way communication channel aren’t being fully utilised. Remarkably 34% of businesses thought that no one in their organisation was using social media to communicate with consumers or for internal purposes. This was higher amongst SMEs (42%) compared to large companies (17%).

Measuring success and proving the tangible benefits of social media are the top barriers behind businesses becoming more social, according to the research. Despite an acknowledgement of these barriers, almost one in three (27%) do not know how the success of social media is measured within their organisation. A further third (30%) are using existing KPIs and a... continued on page two >

Rate

Bookmark

•  Read latest news
  • - Are businesses failing to prepare for the future? »
  • - Apple remains the world's most valuable brand »
  • - £350 million lost each year to exaggerated expenses »
•  Watch exclusive videos
  • - Great British Entrepreneur Awards »
  • - Brighton SEO conference »
  • - Brighton SEO, Fili Wiese, Alfredo Pulvirenti, Jonas Weber »
•  Email this to a friend
•  Print this news