A (Down) Under-Whelming Performance

Some folks just don't get it. In a post last week, I argued that having a Facebook presence is a must for businesses for many reasons, but especially because a basic Facebook page serves as a free advertising and networking tool. However, by no means do I limit my argument to consisting only of Facebook. There are many social media platforms--and no doubt, there will be many more to come--that can and should be exploited by businesses.

Obviously, the global use of social media outlets by businesses is going to vary by country. The determinative factors--such a nation's level of development, the public's access to the internet, and the popularity of (and even access to) various social media platforms--will vary by country.

One might predict that businesses in a developed nation such as Australia would have largely embraced the use of social media as a means of reaching out to and interacting with their existing customers--and their potential customers as well. Such a prediction, though, would be off-base:  results from a recent survey of representatives of 1,000 small and medium-sized businesses showed that only 24% of the businesses were actively using social media platforms in such fashion. Even more surprising were the results produced by a survey question that probed whether businesses felt that social media might have a negative effect on business:  12% of the respondents felt that their business efforts could be hurt by participation in social media.

The survey was conducted by an Australian business consulting company called Telstra Business, Australia's largest telecommunications company. Granted, as an internet provider, Telstra certainly has a vested interest in people and businesses accessing the internet. However, I'm not so sure though that this interest would be strong enough to cause anyone to question the validity of the survey's findings.

The survey results in Australia do indeed call for some head scratching. Many studies (including the Telstra study mentioned above) have produced estimates of the percentage of people worldwide using social media that exceed 60%. Moreover, it is intuitive to believe that the substantial upward trend in the global use of social media will only continue with time. Businesses that fail to grasp the realities associated with global internet trends and fail to seize the marketing and communications opportunities that the internet provides will do so at their own peril.