Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The State of Social Business in 2013

My colleague Brian Solis and I recently pulled together data from four years of surveying digital strategists. We published the findings in a report The State of Social Business 2013 and also made available the data in an easy-to-use PowerPoint deck. Both are free for you to download and use, under a Creative Commons license.
Overall, we found that investment in headcount and infrastructure have steadily grown, as companies reach “intermediate” stages of social business. Several are turning their sights from "social media" as an extension of marketing and communications, and seek to push a "social business" agenda throughout the organization. Top findings include:

Most organizations are “intermediate,” with only 17% self-described as “strategic” in the execution of their social strategies.
78% of companies have a dedicated social media team, at the division, corporate or both levels — only 22% of companies do not have a dedicated team.
Companies are committing more headcount to social media across all sizes of organizations. The biggest jump is for companies with more than 100,000 employees, which now report an average of 49 full-time employees supporting social media, compared to 20 in 2010.
85% of companies have an organizational social media policy, yet only 18% of companies report that their employees’ knowledge of social media usage and the organizational policy is either good or very good.

Some other related Altimeter research include the following: