Most Businesses Still Only “Experiment” with Social Media

Social media use among businesses has grown significantly over the past year or two, but new research from E-Consultancy, in association with the Online Marketing Summit (where WebProNews is conducting exclusive interviews this week), indicates that most businesses are largely still in the experimental stage when it comes to their efforts.

There are a great deal of interesting stats to pick through in the report, but to me, one of the most striking is that 61% (nearly 2/3) say they have experimented with social media, but not done that much. Various stats suggest businesses are starting to get to the place where they view social media as crucial, however. For example, the vast majority (90%) say they expect social media to take up more time internally "in a year's time," while only 8% expect it will take up the same amount of time, and 2% expect less time to be spent on social media next year.

Some other highlights from the report:

- The majority of companies have difficulty measuring the return on investment (ROI) from social media. Almost two-thirds of respondents (61%) say their organizations are “poor” (34%) or “very poor” (27%) at measuring ROI.

- Increased traffic to Web site is the business goal that marketers are most likely to be trying to influence through social media marketing. Three quarters (74%) of companies say they use social media to increase traffic.

- Direct traffic to Web site is by far the metric most commonly used to measure the impact of off-site social media, measured by just under two-thirds of company respondents (63%).

- More brand recognition (64%) is the second most important business objective in terms of impact of social media. A similar proportion of respondents (62%) cite better brand reputation.

- Despite the widespread recognition that social media marketing impacts brand reputation and brand visibility, only a quarter of all respondents (25%) surveyed use online brand mentions and brand awareness as a metric for measuring off-site social media success. Just 15% use brand perception as a metric.

- Just over half of companies (56%) say that they try to achieve increased sales through social media activity. But only a quarter of companies (24%) use sales as a metric for measuring social media success.

Facebook is the Web property mostly commonly used in social media, with 85% of companies surveyed using it as part of their marketing strategy. This is followed by Twitter (perhaps more closely than expected, given Facebook's much larger user base) at 77%, LinkedIn at 58% and YouTube at 49%.

Over two-thirds of company respondents say that the amount of money spent on social media has increased since last year, while 30% say it has stayed the same, and 81% of companies expect social media budgets to increase over the next year, while 18% expect spending to stay the same. So while companies are still experimenting, they must be generally seeing good enough results to keep at it, or see the potential to use it on an expanded basis.

Do you have a concrete social media strategy or do you simply experiment? Discuss.

Consumers Getting More Comfortable with Mobile Shopping

As you know, smartphone usage is on the rise, and that means more opportunities for businesses to sell to customers via their mobile devices. We often hear about how important mobile is to the marketing strategy and especially future strategies, but how much are consumers really into shopping from their phones?

Retrevo shared some findings with us, and concludes that consumers are increasingly warming up to the concept of shopping from their phones. Andrew Eisner, Retrevo's Director of Content says, "With the Mobile Internet becoming more available on everything from smartphones to tablet computers, we see an encouraging number of consumers researching and actually purchasing products with their mobile devices."

Not surprisingly, the mobile shopping is most popular with the young in pretty much every capacity, and the older the demographic, the less inclined they are to use mobile devices to shop.

The young also appear to be most likely to engage with mobile advertising, and even notice mobile ads at all. Furthermore, when asked about their experience when they used a mobile phone to shop, most said they searched for deals, found them, and got the best price, while nearly half also found that it made shopping easier and more fun. A much smaller percentage didn't think it was worth it and wouldn't try again.

Highlights from Retrevo's Findings:

- 59% of people said they found the shopping information they were looking for, when using a mobile phone.
- Only 8% of people said they did not intend to shop from their mobile phone
- Only 9% of people, over 35 years old, have responded to an ad on their mobile phone, compared to 20% of people under 35.
- 55% of people, ages 18 - 24, have used a mobile phone to aid in the shopping process.
- 52% of people, ages 25 - 34, have used a mobile phone to aid in the shopping process.
- 36% of people, ages 35, 44, have used a mobile phone to aid in the shopping process.
- 17% of people, ages 45 and up, have used a mobile phone to aid in the shopping process.
- 17% of people, ages 18 - 24, have made a purchase using their mobile phone.
- 15% of people, ages 25 - 34, have made a purchase using their mobile phone.
- 10% of people, ages 35 - 44, have made a purchase using their mobile phone.
- 3% of people, ages 45 and above, have made a purchase using their mobile phone.

The research indicates that the future of online shopping via mobile devices is bright. Eventually, these younger users are going to become the older ones, and the future youngsters will probably find it hard to imagine a world where shopping from mobile devices wasn't the norm.

A fitting quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "Today's generation doesn't call it a mobile phone; they call it a phone."

Do you shop from your mobile device? Do you purchase items from it? Comment here.

As Companies Relax on Social Media, Threats Increase

Even as social media has grown to be a much more widely accepted form of communication among businesses over the years, there is still plenty of data out there depicting the flaws and setbacks that can occur when social networks are used in the business environment. Just as with email or web surfing in general, there are security concerns, and a new report (pdf) from security firm Sophos claims that malware and spam have increased by as much as 70% on social networks from a year ago.

How big of a security concern do you find social media to be? Discuss here.

The firm surveyed over 500 organizations and found that 36% of users claim to have been sent malware via social networking sites, which is an increase of 69% from last year.

"Computer users are spending more time on social networks, sharing sensitive and valuable personal information, and hackers have sniffed out where the money is to be made," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "The dramatic rise in attacks in the last year tells us that social networks and their millions of users have to do more to protect themselves from organized cybercrime, or risk falling prey to identity theft schemes, scams, and malware attacks."

Of course front and center of everybody's attention is Facebook, the world's most popular social network. Sophos found that out of those surveyed, 60% believe Facebook poses the biggest security threat out of social networks, compared to just 18% naming MySpace, 17% naming Twitter, and 4% naming LinkedIn.

"We shouldn’t forget that Facebook is by far the largest social network – and you’ll find more bad apples in the biggest orchard," says Cluley. "The truth is that the security team at Facebook works hard to counter threats on their site – it's just that policing 350 million users can't be an easy job for anyone. But there is no doubt that simple changes could make Facebook users safer. For instance, when Facebook rolled-out its new recommended privacy settings late last year, it was a backwards step, encouraging many users to share their information with everybody on the Internet."

Although LinkedIn was cited as the network among the top four that sparks the least amount of concern from survey participants, Cluley notes that it has its own significant risk factors, which should not be overlooked.

"Targeted attacks against companies are in the news at the moment, and the more information a criminal can get about your organization’s structure, the easier for them to send a poisoned attachment to precisely the person whose computer they want to break into," he explains. "Sites like LinkedIn provide hackers with what is effectively a corporate directory, listing your staff’s names and positions. This makes it child’s play to reverse-engineer the email addresses of potential victims."

According to Sophos' findings, 49% of firms allow all their staff unfettered access to Facebook, a stat that is up 13% from last year.

"The grim irony is that just as companies are loosening their attitude to staff activity on social networks, the threat of malware, spam, phishing and identity theft on Facebook is increasing," says Cluley. "However, social networks can be an essential part of the business mix today, and the answer is not to bar staff from participating in them, but to apply some 'social security' instead."

As Cluely suggests, social networks have simply become part of the way we do business. At this point for a lot of companies, shutting down access in not an option. The reality is that no matter which way you communicate online, there are going to be threats. This is true not only in the corporate world, but in general life. As social networking becomes more location-oriented, you have to wonder if cyber crime might lead to an increase in physical world crime. That's a scary thought.

Is social media worth the security risks to your company? Share your thoughts.


Have You Read This?
 

> Businesses Benefit as Customers Share Current Locations

> Customer Connections Now Important for Google Results

> Facebook Most Popular Mobile Social Website

Opera: Facebook Most Popular Mobile Site in Africa

According to Opera, Facebook is the most popular site on the mobile web in Africa. In addition, a report from the company shows a 5% jump in global mobile Internet users.

Opera Mini has garnered more than 41.7 million users worldwide showing a 5.3 percent jump compared to the previous month, according to the report. The number of page views in November went up 9.5% and data consumption increased 8.3% compared to October.

In Africa, Facebook has taken a strong lead and ranks as the most popular site in six out of the top 10 countries, Opera says. The company highlights the following global trends:

- In November 2009, more than 41.7 million people used Opera Mini, a 5.3% increase from October 2009 and more than 154% compared to November 2008.

- Those 41.7 million people viewed more than 18.8 billion pages in November 2009. Since October, page-views have gone up 9.5%. Since November 2008, page-views have increased 231%.

- Opera Mini users generated over 285 million megabytes of data for operators worldwide in November 2009. Since October, the data consumed went up by 8.3%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 2.6 petabytes of data in November. Since November 2008, data traffic is up 213%.

- The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage (in order): Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Vietnam and Poland.

Opera also highlights the following trends for Africa:

- The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in Africa are (in order): South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Tanzania and Namibia.

- Some numbers regarding Africa: From November 2008 to November 2009, page-views in the top 10 countries increased by 374%, unique users increased by 177%, and data transferred increased by 183%.

- Since our last spotlight on Africa, Kenya jumped from #4 to #3, Ghana jumped from #11 to #5 and Ivory Coast jumped from #8 to #7.

- Growth rates in Africa: Ghana and Kenya lead the top 10 African countries in terms of page-view growth. Ghana and Ivory Coast lead the top 10 African countries in growth of unique users. Kenya leads the top 10 African countries in page-views, with each user browsing 525 pages on average each month.

- Facebook has taken the lead in Africa; it is the most popular site visited by Opera Mini users in six out of 10 countries and the #2 site in the three countries where it isn’t #1. Google is also very popular, and is ahead of Facebook in a few of the top 10 African countries. Yahoo and Wikipedia are also ubiquitous in the top 10 lists of the various African countries.

- Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets are extremely popular in Africa, but Samsung is a significant exception, boasting the most popular phone used by Opera Mini users in South Africa, Zambia and Namibia.

"It is heartening to know that Opera Mini continues to grow consistently in all regions and categories — specially in continents like Africa where mobile phones are more likely the only way for people to access the Web," said Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. "At Opera, we are striving to bring the most innovative and affordable way for people to access the mobile Web and expect 2010 will prove just as successful for us as the case has been in previous years."

Have You Read This?

> Opera Turbo Sees 60% User Growth in One Month

> 40 Million Reasons You Need a Mobile Web Presence

> Opera Releases Latest Version of Popular Mobile Browser

Next Page »