The FINANCIAL — A study of companies worldwide from SHARE and GUIDE SHARE EUROPE and sponsored by IBM and Marist College found that only 52.8% of respondents were currently monitoring open online social media communities or networks.
A majority of respondents were IT professionals, with others including CEOs and those performing management and other business functions.
According to eMarketer, however, while nearly half of companies were not monitoring social media, 22% of respondents said they would increase monitoring significantly in the next year, with an additional 37.9% saying they would do so over the next one to two years.
Social media allows companies to interact directly with customers, and many of those surveyed took that into consideration as a reason why they monitor social media. When looking at what metrics these companies track on social media, 26.8% of respondents mentioned customer satisfaction and 23.7% said overall buzz. Brand experience was also cited by 21% of respondents.
As these companies track and monitor social media, they also plan to leverage these findings in their business processes. More than a quarter of respondents said they currently leverage social media metrics in business practices (25.7%), while 28.76% said their companies were giving preliminary consideration to this tactic. Social can help companies understand more about their target customer and better develop products and services to meet their needs.
In a November 2011 study from Wildfire Interactive, 97% of companies reported that there was value in social media outreach, but until these companies learn to monitor open social networks and incorporate their findings into business results, proving that value will continue to be a challenge.
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