Yesterday, PR Week and MS&L announced the results of their first annual Social Media Survey. The overarching finding wasn’t too surprising…

“Despite the perceived prevalence of the use of social media in the marketing world, there are many companies that are still cautiously entering the space.”

I think most of us in the communications industry are aware that much of corporate America still thinks “the Twitter” and “the Facebook” are for teenyboppers and (if at all) are very cautiously considering the ever-diminishing MySpace (I don’t even remember my login details for MySpace!) for their debut in the social mediasphere. It’s sad because many of them could have improved their brand identities a long time ago, had they been ahead of the curve. Exhibit A: Wisconsin Tourism Federation (WTF?)

Here (in a nutshell) are some of the survey’s interesting findings:

• 37% of the 271 marketers surveyed reported that their company does not include any social media tools
• 49% of companies do not have a specific approach regarding the use of social media on behalf of the company
• 10% discourage employees to use social media to communicate on behalf of the company
• 22% allow only marketing and communications employees to use social media on behalf of the organization
• 20% of companies encourage all employees to use social media channels to share messages on behalf of the company or its brands
• Of the companies that do leverage social media…
  • 47% manage and monitor customer feedback
  • 40% reach key influencers
  • 39% use it to understand the consumer and competitive landscape
  • 32% use social media to create brand communities and fan pages
  • 31% use it for media relations
  • 28% for product launches
  • 19% for product reviews
  • 6% to monitor conversations

-Andréa S.