New study reveals how companies worldwide are engaging social media

  A new research study was recently released by InSites Consulting that sought to understand customer interaction and engagement by companies worldwide. They surveyed over one thousand companies in an effort to better understand consumer behavior at the social media sites. Some of the findings with regard to social media marketing strategy were truly eye opening.

• Eight out of every ten companies in the US have a Facebook page and well over sixty percent of American businesses are engaging their customers at the social media sites. What they did find, however, is that social media marketing strategy tends to be disjointed and that many companies are not communicating on a company wide level with regard to strategy and deployment.
• American companies do not have the social media presence they should have. Most of the companies contacted understand the importance of having a social media strategy but only 11% have actually put such actual strategies into play.
• One startling revelation was that 26% of all the companies contact not only have no plan for social media but are doing absolutely nothing with regard engaging the social media for marketing purposes.
• Those who are making an effort are seeing solid results while many other lack woefully behind. Less than half of the companies have active LinkedIn or Twitter accounts and only 31% are using YouTube to get the word out. The companies are out there but very few actually have a game plan and are executing it to interact with customers and drive traffic. And, for many that are, they are driving traffic but their company website is woefully inadequate and not coordinated to and designed to turn the traffic into conversions. The social media marketing strategy seems to be in place but the home page ends up dropping the ball.
• Only slightly more than half the companies actually have someone talking with potential customers online. While they respond quickly to consumer opinions and complaints, they are not keeping the dialogue going and forming a “community” that can develop brand loyalty. In addition, they are missing out on true firsthand market research.

InSites Consulting is a global marketing research firm with major offices in New York, London, and Rotterdam. This survey was conducted by reaching and speaking with 1,222 business owners and corporate managers in six countries.