Originally the domain of scrappy startups, social media has definitely hit the big time, or at least has become the province of big companies. The recent Social Media Fitness Study (by yours truly) reported that large and midsize brands significantly outscored their smaller counterparts, filing respective scores of 57 & 56 versus 44 (with 100 being the maximum score). While these results may surprise some, a deeper dive into the reasons behind the gap reveals intriguing insights into the overall state of social media fitness. (FYI: This is a longer version of an article that first appeared on MediaPost.com).
Big Companies Have More Resources to Commit
That large sucking sound you hear is not from jobs leaving the US, but rather the time that disappears because of planning, executing, listening, responding and reporting on social media, time that small businesses find hard to allocate. Notes Nelleke Kloet, Marketing Director at fast-growing startup TagMan, “Social media done right requires resources in terms of money as well as people, which bigger companies have more of.”
Social Media Has Matured Into a “Must-Have” Asset
While small companies are focused on getting the right people on the bus and their next big “pivot,” thereby making social less of a priority, large companies are three times more likely to see social as a transformative proposition for their enterprise. Explains Constance Walker of PPL Electric Utilities, who weathered a storm-caused outage in 2010 by communicating to customers via social channels, “That nailed it for our management as far as the importance of social media.”
Recognizing the Need for a Designated Driver
It takes a certain level of maturity to realize that, just because you have car keys, it doesn’t mean you should get behind the wheel. In the past few years, larger companies have evolved their approach to social, replacing “twinterns” with professionals, and are four times as likely to have a designated social driver. Grant Johnston, CMO of Pegasystems, notes, “We’ve added another dedicated full-time resource to further our social media efforts, and we’re confident that this role will continue to increase.”
If Your Ears are Burning, at Least You’re Listening
As the social part of social media becomes better understood, brands come to realize that listening and responding is as important as or even more so than just talking. Interestingly, large companies are twice as likely to be monitoring 24/7 and responding in real time than small companies. Clearly, large companies like Intel have the advantage here. Explains Jennifer Lashua of Intel, who has a social team around the world, “We have the ability to monitor and moderate 24×7 and in multiple languages.”
Social Media is Not All Fun and Games
To steal a bit from Allstate’s campaign, mayhem is everywhere. This is especially true in social media, as the folks at Domino’s, Comcast and Pfizer would no doubt warn you. Large companies are increasingly aware of this fact and therefore are five times as lucky to have a disaster plan developed or in the works. Adds Greg Tirico, Senior Social Media Manager at Sage, “We are in the lucky majority of social media participants that have had the opportunity to learn from other’s mistakes. It seems very natural to have a disaster plan much like a company would put a business continuity plan in place.”
A Little Training Goes a Long Way
Only someone with a death wish would try to run a marathon without training first. This is especially true for social media, in which a little training can make a huge difference; yet, nearly half of the small companies I surveyed had no training in place. One exception to this finding was a non-profit organization called God’s Love We Deliver. Emily Findley handles social for GLWD and served up this explanation: “By training our staff in the basics of having an account, retweeting our work and sharing our posts, we’re further involving them in spreading the message about the work that we do.”
Power to the People Doesn’t Play as Well in Big Co Land
The one area in which small companies seem to be ahead is their willingness to encourage all employees to be involved in social media. In fact, while half of small companies encourage this behavior, only one-fourth of big ones do. While this may be done out of necessity for small companies, big companies that restrict access to social media nonetheless are missing out on a huge opportunity to unleash an army of advocates for what Sage’s Tirico calls an “overall customer-centric market approach.”
It’s Hard to Get Ahead, If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going
Though it is a relatively new concept, large companies are more than twice as likely to have a social media road map in place, while more than four out of 10 small companies are prepared to wing it. This is obviously a mistake. As Erin Bush of Neustar summarizes, “They don’t put the time, effort and resources against it in the proper way and they expect to see results immediately. I like to remind folks that if you have no social media presence at all, it’ll take 18 months to see results. Most companies don’t want to wait that long.”
For a full copy of The Social Media Fitness Report or to see how socially fit your business is relative to other companies, click here.