Sensis publishes Yellow Social Media Report – what Australian people and businesses are doing with social media
Sensis have released their 2012 Yellow Social Media Report, which includes results of surveys of individual and businesses about their use of social media.
As we’re interested in how business can make the most out of the opportunity of social media and use it as part of their digital strategy, we’ve focused on some of the key findings around businesses.
27% of small, 34% of medium and 79% of large businesses have a social media presence.
25% of businesses with a social media presence don’t have a strategy to drive traffic to their social media. The survey results show that most businesses are still focused on establishing their social media presence and becoming active participants in social media.
This matches what we find in our industry research into large businesses and the custom research we do for clients. Businesses are increasingly venturing into social media, although not always with an effective strategy or plan on how they will define and measure the success of their activities.
40% of the survey respondents in medium size businesses weren’t sure how much they were spending on the use of social media – this is a trait that we often see, businesses spending time and resources but being unsure what their outlay is.
Slightly more surprising is that 54% of respondents in large businesses are also unsure how much their businesses are spending on social media activities. Typically larger businesses have more robust reporting and tracking mechanisms, and more pressure to account for the results of their marketing spend in terms of real measurable business impact.
Less than half the businesses surveyed are measuring the Return on Investment for social media. Measuring the ROI for social media has been difficult for many businesses, but as social media tools and strategies mature, we believe that measuring social media effectiveness and ROI becomes more achievable.
Many businesses were using the number of social media connections as a measure of their social media success – however, this is an unlikely indicator of long term success and in isolation becomes a quite meaningless number. Unless social media can be measured as contributing to real business results, businesses risk outlaying more than necessary without improving their results.
Overall it is positive to see more businesses demonstrating an increased awareness of the potential for social media and willing to spend more in this area. However, the importance of clear strategic goals and measurable results, and the optimisation of social media efforts is an important key to long term success.
