Companies that don't use social media are losing out

A study from the Yankee Group for Siemens Enterprise Communications has revealed that companies who fail to use social media to interact with their customers do so "at their own peril".

The poll questioned 750 people, of whom 70 percent agreed that consumers want access to company experts and support via social media channels as well as trusting company information provided to them via these networks.
The survey also showed that 60 percent feel that "company outreach" via social media would improve their brand loyalty, as they feel many firms would be monitoring their social media streams for feedback and consumer satisfaction.
It was also revealed that customer satisfaction with current businesses using social media is only 65 percent, allowing room for improvement and those firms that have yet to implement any form of social media policy to do so.
Shockingly, one third of companies have no formal social networking policies, do not allow the use of it at work or aren't aware of their company's participation in social networking.
Right tools for the job
Setting up social media streams and groups is one thing, but maintaining it is quite another. As such, 70 percent of employees questioned said they felt they needed better tools to track and manage social media for business, and would like the ability to initiate a Web conference automatically from a chat discussion at work, inviting people from within their social and work networks.
A lack of proper tools was deemed to be responsible for a loss of opportunities to drive customer collaboration and employee productivity, Siemens noted, just as they announced a new service enabling companies to weave both public and corporate social media tools into enterprise customer call centres.
In another survey, which questioned people on the social media tools they used in business to reach new prospects and generate greater business awareness, 53 percent said they favoured LinkedIn. Facebook garnered 39 percent of responses while Twitter got 27 percent.