Tipping point for business participation in social media

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Statistics on consumer expectations regarding business participation in social media seem to support the idea that marketers need to roll up their sleeves and get cracking.

Companies' presence in social media

Cone’s 2008 Business in Social Media Study Fact Sheet says that sixty percent of Americans use social media, and of those, 59 percent interact with companies on social media Web sites.

One in four interacts more than once per week.

Definition of social media

Cone defines social media as:

Technology facilitated dialogue among individuals or groups, such as blogs/microblogs, forums

According to the survey, 93 percent of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media.

Role of companies within social networks

Here's another one of Cone's charts:

The role of companies within social networks, according to social media users

Scaling up social media participation a challenge for business

Meeting social media users’ expectations poses a challenge on the business side.

For example, as Peter Kim has pointed out in “Social media marketing’s scalability problem,” while social media technologies seem to scale ok, “the programs - especially those with a labor-intensive component - don’t.”

There’s no real shortcut when it comes to holding authentic personal dialogues. That’s the point.