Social Media Today Study: How Social Is Global Enterprise?

Today in Atlanta, Social Media Today (SMT) announced its Socially Enabled Enterprise Oracle Study. SMT’s research, done in partnership with Oracle and Leader Networks, was commissioned to explore the changing role of the IT and marketing with the impact of social business in large organizations.

The idea of a “socially enabled enterprise” is one where a set of collaborative processes drives business improvements across an organization. It’s one where the concept of “customer-centric focus” is no longer an option in today’s social-mobile world.

After all, industry experts like SMT, Oracle, and Leader Networks know today’s customer truly asking. They know social consumer behavior:

• Almost 40% of consumers have Tweeted about a brand.
• 58% have Liked a brand; 41% have shared content about a brand.
• 75% of social users have posted a negative comment after a bad customer experience.
• A typical user will tell an average 53 people about a poor customer experience.

Oracle even goes so far as to declare the socially enabled enterprise as “the textbook picture of a customer-centric organization, delivering the kind of enhanced, seamless experiences that will make your brand irresistible.”

 

The Study

Social Media Today’s research, conducted in the spring of 2013, gathered insights from 20+ industries and 52 countries on the impact social platform adoption is having on enterprise’s operations and customer-facing initiatives. Respondents were screened to ensure that they held a role in either marketing or IT, were engaged by an organization employing 100 employees or more, and worked for an organization which currently uses social platforms. 925 respondents met these criteria and were thus retained for analysis:  662 of those reported holding a marketing position, while 263 were in IT/technology.

Study Findings

The study found increased marketing and IT consideration and planning around social media in enterprise organizations. Findings include:

1. There is a widespread adoption of social platforms in organizations
2. Larger organizations (those with 50,000+ employees) are much further along the path to becoming socially enabled enterprises.
3. Becoming a socially enabled organization is considered part of the strategic agenda
4. The transition towards a socially enabled enterprise is not expected to be easy
5. Social business performance measurement is expected to be more operational/process focused in the future

Social Media Today and its partners have profiled the socially enabled enterprise (SEE) to be one with the following characteristics:

• Strong and collaborative leadership
• A strategy to leverage socially-derived customer or partners insights to improve business functions
• A compendium of business-focused measures
• The ability to link the strategy for becoming a socially enabled enterprise with operational plans

Get their study here.