Relinquishing control is key to social media
- Luke Telford
- 8 February 2010
Photo credit: ilco, sxc.hu
.The surveyed 400 US companies said that social media is already delivering on the promise of building brand discussion and generating ideas, particularly where customers, partners and employees are actively engaged. However, the survey found there is a considerable discrepancy between performance objectives and the ways in which businesses were measuring their success in social media.
Typical performance objectives included generating word of mouth (38%), securing customer loyalty (34%), increasing brand awareness (30%). Despite these, the top two methods by which most businesses measured their success were membership increase (34%) and number of posts or comments on their page (32%).
"These results indicated that participation is still considered to be the biggest measure of success. Potentially more useful analytics, however, such as increase in search engine rank and citations/links on other sites, are less often utilised, highlighting a mismatch between the desired outcome and how that outcome is measured," Katherine Milesi, a partner of Deloitte's Online Practice in Australia, says.
While US companies have yet to realise the full potential, Australian companies have longer way to go. Some are incorporating social media, yet many are still coming to terms with it or are simply not paying attention, says Milesi.
And what is responsible for this? Milesi believes it is to do with control.
"The key stumbling point for many organisations is their reluctance to relinquish control. Yet what they fail to realise is that this is happening already. People form impressions of organisations through a myriad of sources, including an array of social media vehicles. Gone are the days when the annual report, the website, the ad campaign, the PR campaign and the AGM were the key image shapers for an organisation." #
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