SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues.
Last week’s poll question: What’s your company’s stance toward social-media engagement?
- Being proactive. We understand social media is here to stay and are making necessary changes to adapt, 52%
- Playing catch-up, without a real plan for engagement, 28%
- Playing by the old rules of top-down-command-and-control communications, keeping the message close to the vest, 17%
- The ostrich approach: Sticking our head in the sand in hopes the whole thing will go away, 2%
These results are somewhat surprising — I would have expected the “playing catch-up” number to have skewed higher — but they are encouraging nonetheless. eMarketer reports that “Marketers will continue to make social networks a priority for 2010,” and that “a significant portion of their spending will go toward building and maintaining a social network presence.”
It’s good to know our readership understands the vital impact social media is having on their brands and that they are making proactive course corrections to address their shortcomings. They need to go beyond making mere tactical changes — or even strategic adjustments for that matter. Effective social media engagement requires a change in mindset that wholeheartedly embraces authenticity, transparency and an openness. In my view, that’s the real challenge in 2010.
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It is encouraging to see that 52% of companies said they were taking a proactive approach to sm. Not only is it important for companies to embrace authenticity, transparency, and openness, but there has to be a passion and excitement for the opportunity that it provides. I feel as though many companies are bogged down by the responsibility to juggle everything. My hope is that companies will empower and equip their employees to effectively utilize the opportunity.
Hmm, it seems the poll is kind of flawed in my opinion. Playing “catch up” and being proactive are for the purposes of this poll almost one and the same. It’s 2010, if within the last year you came to “understand social media is here to stay and are making necessary changes to adapt” then you’re already playing catch up and chances are that while you’re at it you’re proceeding “without a real plan for engagement.” A better question would have been, “Do you have a social media strategy in place and are you seeing quantifiable results?”
No business wants to think it’s struggling to catch a moving train, but the fact is most are.
Jurgen Castro
Carton Donofrio Partners
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by SmartBrief on SocMed, Bader Rutter, Daniel Easterbrook, Robin Schooling, Natalie Stanczyk and others. Natalie Stanczyk said: 52% of companies are proactive towards social media via http://ow.ly/W11C [...]
Good point Jurgen. Next week’s poll question will be the one you suggested.