The time to hesitate is through

Most Fortune 100 don't get Twitter

November 18, 2009 By Matthew Gain Leave a Comment

Today Weber Shandwick (my employer) released a study highlighting the fact that most of the Fortune 100 companies don’t get how to use Twitter effectively. Though I don’t suspect that was a huge surprise to a lot of people – especially those in the social media space.

The report found that 73 percent of Fortune 100 companies registered a total of 540 Twitter accounts. However, about three-quarters (76 percent) of those accounts did not post tweets very often, and more than half (52 percent) were not actively engaged. (This was measured by engagement metrics such as numbers of links, hashtags, references and retweets.)

In addition, 50 percent of the Fortune 100 accounts had fewer than 500 followers, a small number in relation to the size and reach of a major corporation. Another 15 percent were inactive; 4 percent having been abandoned after being used for a specific event.

Other findings included:

41 accounts appeared to be not controlled by the organisation
76 percent of accounts had made less than 500 tweets
24 percent of the Twitter accounts were primarily used for brand awareness and only 11 percent for customer service

As my colleague Chris Perry, who co-leads our global digital efforts said on Ad Age today:

Most companies fail to realize Twitter’s full potential as a market engagement platform. While 73% of Fortune 100 companies registered a total of 540 Twitter accounts, effectiveness based on level of activity, interaction and engagement were off the mark.

The report makes five recommendations for companies looking to create true engagement and market interaction on Twitter:

1. Listen to conversations
2. Participate in conversations
3. Update frequently with valuable information
4. Reply to people who talk about issues that are important to your company
5. Retweet relevant conversations

I’d be interested to know your thoughts on the study and its conclusions. What has been your experience with big brands on Twitter? How different would the report look if we were analysing companies in Australia and Asia?

Embeddable version of the report here.

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Filed Under: Advertising/Marketing, PR, Professional Posts Tagged With: Fortune 100, PR, Public Relations, social media, Twitter, Weber Shandwick

The future of the internet according to Eric Schmidt

October 30, 2009 By Matthew Gain Leave a Comment

Google’s Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years
- Watch more Tech Videos at Vodpod.

The future of the internet according …”, posted with vodpod

Nice excerpt from Eric Schmidt’s interview at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando here on what the internet will look like in five years.

The key Excerpts for me are:

There will be more Chinese content than English
Assuming the phone manufacturers get it right, more people will be accessing by a mobile rather than PC

But for me the most important comment is:

Most people’s information will be gotten from other information as opposed to traditional information sources. People will listen to other people more than anyone else.

Those in PR that aren’t working to build advocates for their brands outside of the traditional media now, will be well behind the eight ball if Eric’s forecast becomes reality and I tend to think he won’t be wrong.

Filed Under: PR, Professional Posts, Web stuff Tagged With: Eric Schmidt, Future of PR, Gartner, Gartner Symposium, Gartner Symposium 2009, Google, Orlando, PR, social media

Filed Under: PR, Professional Posts, Web stuff Tagged With: 4th Annual PR and New Media Summit, Frocomm, New Media, PR Skills, social media

The time to hesitate is through

March 18, 2009 By Matthew Gain 2 Comments

I read three things today that brought about the subject for this post:

The first was this graphic, which I saw on The Cow blog whilst waiting for the train at Ladbroke Grove Station.

The graph made me laugh, but at the same time got me down as it is exactly the scenario that I have faced for the last four or so years whenever trying to pitch for budget or permission to engage in a more social manner.

The second was Forrester’s ‘Social Media Playtime is Over’ report that seemed to be the perfect addition to the chart above. The report found that more than half of the organisations surveyed will increase their spending on social media despite the downturn. However, to put this in context they are likely to be starting from a low base. According to Ad Age, who presumably had full access to the report:

Three-quarters of those surveyed who knew their budgets said they allowed for $100,000 or less for social media tools over a 12-month period. And they are not integrating social media into their overall marketing strategy. Instead, they are “experimenting” with isolated tactics and hoping that they will take the place of long-term strategy.

The third item was an email from Elizabeth. Phil Ryan The digital guy where she works, Four Communications, had done a quick survey around the office that morning.

He sent an email with the following request in it:

Do you belong to a social network (e.g. Facebook)? If so can you let me know which one you belong to and also how many friends/ contacts / fans (whatever the term used on your social network) have you got.

The clever chap then did some sums and emailed everyone later that day with the following:

Around 100 (MG – there is about 140 people at the organisation, though I can’t imagine they all responded) of you belong to one or more social networks

The average friend/contact number works out to be just under 300 friends each.

Taking a low estimate of each of your friends/contacts having around 200 friends each themselves..

That’s a potential of 6,000,000 contacts with just two degrees of separation. Puts online into context doesn’t it and gives us some ideas on how to leverage.

None of these three things were connected, but the underlying issue is unmistakable. That is that there is a group out there that get this stuff and are loudly proclaiming the importance of it. On the other side there is a group that have their heads in the sand.

Which side is your organisation?

Social media is not that hard and with the right advice you will reap the rewards, perhaps not overnight, and definitely not without hiccups, but you will be better off in the long run. So, listen to your agencies and the people internally that are recommending investment. Put an appropriate amount of budget aside and also make the appropriate resourcing investments.

Did I mention I am looking for a job?