Early in 2009 McKinsey surveyed 1,700 executives from around the world to determine the value they have realized from their Web 2.0 deployments. The study stated that “the heaviest users of Web 2.0 applications are also enjoying benefits such as increased knowledge sharing and more effective marketing. These benefits often have a measurable effect on the business.”
Looking at the chart below it is not surprising that there is a strong correlation between the familiarity and relative longevity of certain technologies (video, blogs and rss) and their benefit to corporations. Companies, especially larger companies, tend to avoid adopting new ideas until they have seen other companies take that risk. It’s interesting to see Social Networking ranking so high – given it’s short lifespan. I would expect to see Social Networking topping the list in the next two years.
It’s also interesting to see these referred to as ‘technologies’. They are all certainly enabling technologies but the real value is in the content they allow to be more freely shared. In time the focus on these communications tactics as ‘technologies’ will fall into the background and the emphasis will be on the marketing and communication value that they promote.
Not every every tactic is right for every company but it is safe to say that video sharing should be at the top of any company’s list that is considering adopting new Web 2.0 tactics.
This video presents some impressive and thought provoking stats on the prevalence and influence of social media. Are the numbers true? Hard to know but the overall thrust of the video is clear – Social media – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. is changing how companies communicate with their constituents and the rate of that change is accelerating.
Follow this Socialnomics link for more detail and discussion around the topic.
Nielsen has released a new report that looks at online engagement by Internet users. John Burbank (above), CEO of Nielsen, provides highlights of the study. Online video and social media lead the way while the rate of growth for ’traditional’ online activities such as e-mail and search has continued to decrease.
According to the report online video and social media have now surpassed e-mail in terms of online activity. Why is this happening? Johan Jervoe, CMO for Marketing at Macdonald’s summarized this new behaviour well: ” It’s not about technology and wanting to be online constantly. It’s about wanting to belong and be connected constantly.”
