Bill Johnston shares research about Social Media ecosystems on the Online Community Report at:
http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/archives/537-Social-Media-Ecosystem...
Here's the post:
The Social Media Ecosystems research study was conducted by the Online Community Research Network in April of 2009. The study was created to provide insight about how organizations leverage external online community and social media sites to support their organizational goals.
We received approximately 60 completed surveys. Participants represent many sectors and markets including: large software companies, large community and social media destination sites, niche community sites, manufacturers, government and non-profits.
Report Highlights
We asked a range of questions about the use of external community and social media sites to support an organization's online presence. Among the findings:
A majority of respondents (26%) said that their community has existed for more than five years.
Of the high priority sites mentioned, five sites were mentioned as most important:
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Second Life
The most important goal on ecosystem sites is to educate and inform followed by the goal of peer-to-peer evangelism.
Creating relationships between user and brand rated the most important activity followed by messaging and communicating timely information.
Most respondents are learning from current site participation and actively strategizing as they go along without a formal ecosystem plan in place.
Community managers or assistants are most often tasked with ecosystem site measurement.
More enhanced, direct communication is what respondents most value about ecosystem site participation.
The advice most given to peers was:
• Be efficient with process and measurement.
• Be responsive in communications to members/participants.
• Be authentic in the way you communicate and respond.
High Priority Social Media Sites
We asked participants to list the highest priority social media sites they maintain a presence on.
Of all the high priority sites mentioned, five sites were mentioned as most important. Those sites, and a snapshot of the organizations activities on those sites:
• 21 listed Twitter primarily for sharing information and building business relationships.
• 11 listed Facebook primarily for fan pages promoting company or brand.
• 5 entered LinkedIn for recruiting and client acquisition and retention.
• 3 use YouTube for sharing corporate videos including demos, game trailers and commercials.
• 3 use Second Life for health care support, meetings, recruiting and networking.
Priority Social Media Site: Twitter
Twitter was by far the highest priority social media touchpoint mentioned by the respondents.
Respondents mention using Twitter both personally and professionally (with both personal and "professional" accounts). Many users mentioned having more than 4 twitter accounts and personas.
Respondents mentioned using Twitter to:
• Listen / monitor sentiment, snapshot of current community "mood"
• Build business relationships
• Generate leads
• Support customers
• Connect with developers
• An extension of live chats and to keep people up to the minute
• Creating a network for event attendees
• Share news and marketing messaging
• Build awareness for their organization and cause
• Sharing online research re: community development
• Host events, such as the#gno Twitter party for women every Tuesday night
Note: The full report contains all of the write in data about Twitter, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and the other priority social media sites.
Social Media Strategy
The majority of our respondents have an existing online community destination they are hosting and managing. We have inferred from data collected in this study, as well as from interactions at our events and with client engagements, that have been slow to embrace social media participation because they have been primarily focused on increasing engagement on their respective, hosted sites. Participation in Twitter seems like the place many organizations start when they begin to experiment with creating a presence that includes hosted properties as as an extended social media presence. Not surprisingly, we found that a majority (66%) of respondent organizations do not have a comprehensive social media ecosystem strategy in place, as many are just beginning to experiment.
• 18% (10) replied yes.
• 56% (32) responded that they don’t need a formal plan.
• 16% (9) said that a formal, comprehensive plan is currently being written.
• 10% (6) replied no.
The Social Media Ecosystem report, which includes full results and all write in answers can be purchased on our research store:
http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/
Posted by Bill Johnston in Online Community Report
