Listening is good…and every company needs better PR.

Written by jeffbullas – http://jeffbullas.com/?p=1227“>View Comments
Categories: PR, Press Release, Search Engine Optimisation

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I thought I knew who was in charge of Social Media in corporations until I came across this survey conducted by ipressroom.com with support by the PRSA which interviewed 278 public relations, marketing and human resources professionals to identify trends regarding their approach to social media. The breakdown of the companies surveyed by revenue was as follows

• 14% of the companies had revenue in excess of $1 Billion,
• 5% had revenues between $500 Million and $1 Billion
• 36% with revenues from $5 Million to $500 Million
• 45% with revenues under $5 Million

The survey asked a variety of questions including the following.

1. Which online communications channels are most important?
2. Which ones should organizations deploy first?
3. Which channels are critical for employees to learn to use to do their jobs effectively in a networked world?

So what were six insights from this survey and who really is running the “Social Media Show” ? 

Insight One: Social Media Is Prioritized and Utilized More Than  Managing the Company’s  Website Content…  despite the fact that an annual survey in 20 countries of 4,475 Opinion leaders called the “Edelman Trust Barometer,” revealed a company’s own website is seen as more credible than business blogs, personal blogs, social networking sites and advertising…… “Most organizations deem it more important to utilise social networks and micro-blogging services than devote more time to managing and updating content on their website”.

Note: Is this because “Social Media” is seen as trendy and new?

Insight Two: Ease of Use Drives Adoption.. therefore not surprisingly, micro-blogging has grown slightly bigger than blogging, 62% versus 59%, demonstrating that lowering the barrier to entry — the “140-character news cycle” as Shel Holtz puts it — drives social media adoption by making it easier for people to participate.

Insight Three: Small to medium-sized enterprises lead the way in Social Networking and Twitter.  Small to medium-sized enterprises are significantly ahead of larger organizations when it comes to adopting Twitter (64% versus 47%) and social networking (74% adoption versus 38%) but not in blogging which is now squarely in the large organization’s repertoire. But larger organizations are managing the content on their web sites more actively than small to medium-sized enterprises.

Insight Four:  Public Relations is leading the social media revolution inside organizations of all types and sizes

• PR leads marketing in the management of all social media communications channels. Marketing leads PR in managing only email marketing and SEO from https://seoly.in/.
• In 51% of organizations, PR lead digital communications compared to 40.5% by marketing.
• PR is responsible for blogging at 49% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for blogging at 22% of all organizations.
• PR is responsible for social networking at 48% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for social networking at 27% of all organizations.
• PR is responsible for micro-blogging at 52% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for micro-blogging at 22% of all organizations.

Note: So there you have it Public Relations Professionals, you are running the Social Media Show… in most cases.

Insight Five:  Among those responsible for hiring PR and marketing employees which Digital Skills were seen as most important and how did they rank?

A: Companies With Turnover Under $1B

1. Social Networking
2. Blogging
3. Micro-Blogging
4. SEO
5. Email Marketing
6. Web Content Management
7. Social Bookmarking

B: Companies With Sales Over $1B

1. Blogging
2. Social Networking
3. Micro-Blogging
4. Web Content Management
5. SEO
6. Email Marketing
7. Social Bookmarking

(Source: http://seobergen.no)

Note: So if you want a job in PR or Marketing it seems some experience with Social Media wouldn’t go astray

Insight Six: Social Media is growing in importance as a communications approach…with the majority of organizations considering hiring a specialist. This demonstrates that social media is no longer just something to do in your spare time, but rather a core discipline to be maintained by a dedicated resource.

• 26% are definitely interested in hiring dedicated resources to maintain some degree of social media engagement, while
• 48% of all organizations are considering adding dedicated staff that specialize in this area.
• Interest in adding dedicated social media specialists to the workforce is markedly higher among organizations with $1bn+ in annual revenue (43%) that it is at small to medium-sized enterprises (23%).

So there we have it, The 2009 Digital Readiness Report, a study conducted by iPressroom and PRSA, found that public relations professionals are firmly in the lead when it comes to managing an organization’s use of social media communications channels. And you thought it was going to be the marketing department didn’t you.

So who should be in charge of Social Media? Like to hear your thoughts

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Tags: blogs, Marketing Professionals, PR, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networking, Survey, twitter

some good highlights

Celebrating a Decade of Open Sharing:
2001-2011

 

 

MIT OpenCourseWare’s First 10 Years: 100 Million Served

On April 4, 2001, MIT announced it would publish educational materials from all of its courses freely and openly on the Internet. Ten years later, OCW has shared materials from more than 2000 courses with an estimated 100 million individuals worldwide. Join us in celebrating the 10th anniversary of this groundbreaking effort.

» Read the 2001 announcement in the New York Times.
» Watch the 2001 MIT OpenCourseWare press conference
» Read news and reflections on 10 years of OpenCourseWare

Available April 26th in the US & Canada!

16GB version: $399, 32GB version: $499

Optional Keyboard Docking Station: $149

Rob from ASUS unboxes the Eee Pad Transformer TF101. The perfect tablet becomes the most versatile PC when docked into the optional keyboard docking station. Up to 16 hours of battery life, Android Honeycomb 3.0, NVIDIA Tegra 2, IPS Display, and more.

Follow @ASUS and hash tag #EeePadTransformer for details on how to win a Transformer.

more usable AND “snazzy 3d ui”??…jury is out

Comments: 19

David

[29 April 2011 06:35 AM]

I think it makes sense in the enterprise environment (as noted in the article) Google App customers renting the client hardware.

Google could potentially rent them with their gigabit internet deployment and through other ISP as part of the internet subscription package.

Shishank

[29 April 2011 07:02 AM]

It does make lot of sense to me specially for corporate customers. But are we going to see Google on each and everything?

Shishank

Brett F

[29 April 2011 07:07 AM]

Yes.

At that rate ($10-$20) it’s a commodity and covering hardware & software upgrades and support issues clinches the deal.

ambiguator

[29 April 2011 07:15 AM]

as long as the $10-$20 / month is not on top of acquisition or contract fees, and as long as upgrades are cheap and easy, it makes sense as a replacement for my netbook.

however, based on my experience with mobile, i can see the actual costs quickly adding up to make this less affordable than replacing a netbook every couple of years.

Alex Tolley

[29 April 2011 07:20 AM]

How practical is this? Used laptops are cheap. The Chrome apps will need access to the web, requiring a monthly connection fee or use where it is free, e.g. schools and colleges.

But with decent cheap laptops in the $250 range, the rental is quite expensive. Financing a new one would make more sense.

I could see a niche market for the product, but I fail to see the attraction given that computers are cheap commodities.

Indian Marketer

[29 April 2011 07:50 AM]

Yeah, if i am out without laptop. I may rent from them. There can be many more reasons to rent a laptop like if your laptop is not working and can’t be fixed within a sort of period due to some reason. You may prefer renting a laptop.

Tony

[29 April 2011 08:21 AM]

Google does not do Hardware well. Look at the Google phone.

My concern would be their support, and hardware upgrades.

Would I subscribe, sure, would I subscribe with google.. not so sure.

Eric Meyer

[29 April 2011 09:15 AM]

Only if the rental fee covered the cost of them removing the hard drive and chipper-shredding it after return. Otherwise, another possible vector for exposing my logins and other data is the last thing I need, let alone would pay for.

Bob Miller

[29 April 2011 10:54 AM]

This would be good for international travel, since Bad Things happen to laptops in US customs.

But at home, no. I can’t get an Internet connection that is fast enough, low-latency enough, or reliable enough to use for everything. Local compute and storage will be necessary for a long time in much of the US.

Marie Ysais

[29 April 2011 11:03 AM]

I can see where some might need to rent a lap top but for me no way! To me a lap top is a little to personal.

Zach

[29 April 2011 11:59 AM]

Definitely, if the costs were equivalent or lower than buying one.
FWIW – I bet if you change the word “rent” to “lease” in your question you’d get a higher number of affirmative answers.
After all, a great many people already lease their equipment from manufacturers. And in many ways the words are interchagable.

Garmon Estes

[30 April 2011 08:24 AM]

If the subscription includes hardware and a 3G plan, stays within the $20- $30 a month range,then I would definitely consider it.

Anthony Arteste

[30 April 2011 02:17 PM]

Not sure how this would work or whether it is of any value. Are we talking short-term of long-term rental?

If it’s long term then it’s not a sound investment in my opinion. If it’s short term them i would be too worried about security

I travel everywhere with my laptop so would never need to rent. Using services such as Dropbox i ensure that i can access my files wherever i am.

Luk

[ 2 May 2011 01:09 AM]

@Garmon Estes That’d be a pretty awesome deal, considering 3G plans (at least in Europe) 😀

$20, considering I change my computer every 3 years would be pretty sweet. I usually spend ~ $1000 for a laptop.

Rambo Tribble

[ 2 May 2011 07:23 AM]

While it has to be noted that the devil is in the details, it seems Google might find traction with this further step in the evolution toward computing/communication/media as not just a commodity, but a subscriber utility. Ironically, forty years ago many were similarly renting time, access and hardware to run Telex terminals hooked to a PDP-8.

ChrisFS

[ 2 May 2011 04:26 PM]

In January, I bought a nice used laptop for $170. It’s not the latest, but it has a big enough hard drive and a fast enough chip to let me use Word, Excel and surf the video (including video). I intend to keep it for at least 8-17 mos and probably longer. So renting a laptop would be of questionable value to me.

Cindy

[ 2 May 2011 06:15 PM]

I think the renting or leasing of laptops has its pros and cons. It’s good for people that cant afford a laptop or use one so rarely that there is no justification for buying one. I would be worried about my data being stored on one and someone seeing or using it after me. I would have to be assured that the laptop would be cleared of my information. Short term its ok but not for long term use.

Carlos Randolph

[ 3 May 2011 04:30 PM]

I can’t remember if it was on Slashdot or Ars today but an article was written about Aarons’s rental and them installing monitoring software on their rental PCs. The short of it was that they were able to have key logs, web cam pics, and other stuff of their renters. Their renters did not know about it either.

I’m a Mac guy and my last 6 systems were all refurbs from Apple. That’s how I shaved my costs.

Carlos Randolph

[ 3 May 2011 04:32 PM]

I can’t remember if it was on Slashdot or Ars today but an article was written about Aarons’s rental and them installing monitoring software on their rental PCs. The short of it was that they were able to have key logs, web cam pics, and other stuff of their renters. Their renters did not know about it either.

I’m a Mac guy and my last 6 systems were all refurbs from Apple. That’s how I shaved my costs.