Business and Social Media – the Stats

The hottest topic of ‘09 might just be the explosion of social media across the business and marketing world. Of significant interest to the web world is how  businesses are using these sites to raise brand awareness, engage with customers and boost sales. The question is, what else are they doing? In order to accurately assess the effect of social media and how businesses choose to use it, we need the facts.

A recent benchmarking study by Business.com offers a lot of insight in this arena.

One of the most interesting tidbits is a measure of how businesses measure their success with social media initiatives. A whopping 61% judge success by website traffic, while 57% say engagement with prospects is their benchmark. Only 23% gauged useful product feedback as a success measure – a surprisingly low number. Additionally, revenue came in at 42%, neck in neck with brand reputation.

Looking at these stats proved thought-provoking. While website traffic is always a key metric to measure, social media participation isn’t just about boosting site stats. Much more significantly, it’s about engaging with customers and prospective customers in a meaningful way. Increasingly, users of social media are looking for what’s useful and important to them. They don’t want to be talked TO, spammed or tricked into clicking on outside links. Instead, they want businesses to provide them with useful information, valuable offers, customer service and entertainment.

Since 2009 was the year of businesses jumping into social media en masse, perhaps 2010 will be the year that everyone refines their message and strategy in order to more effectively make use of these resources.

Click here to read the full length of the study, and lots of other juicy tidbits about businesses and social media.

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