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1. Richmond Events - UK Business Panel
Social media research
April 2011
richmondevents

2. April 2011
Social media – Research into social media usage in the workplace
Undertaken by Richmond Events, March 2011.
Contents
1. Background 2
2. Headline findings 3
3. The full results follow. Social media - results 4
3.1. Current spending on social media. 4
3.2. Different social media platforms 5
3.3. Effectiveness of different media types. 6
3.4. Social media as part of a wider strategy. 7
3.5. Responsibility for social media. 8
3.6. Levels of agreement. 9
3.7. Happiness. 10
4. Further Information 11
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1. Background
We launched the UK Business Panel in January 2007. Our intention was to create the
most informed and reliable specialist research audiences available in the UK. Our
customers are, exclusively, senior budget-holders across a range of disciplines from
major companies and public sector organisations.
We’ve recruited a panel of over 1,200 directors, heads of departments and senior
managers who have agreed to answer our questionnaires. The first questionnaire in
February 2007 was on the topic of Leadership. Since then we have completed over a
dozen surveys on topics as diverse as The Environment to views on the Coalition. A
full list of topics can be found at the end of this report.
This report focuses on the subject of Social media.
A more detailed breakdown of the panel follows:
Gender Age Job Title Job function
25 to
Male 76% 2% Director 28% IT 25%
30
31 to Head of
Female 24% 10% 31% Communications 7%
37 Function
38 to Board Financial
31% 21% 8%
45 Director Services (PIMS)
46 to Senior Human
41% 13% 17%
55 Manager Resources
56 to General
16% 4% Catering 5%
65 Manager
Public Sector
66+ 1% 2% Finance 7%
Equivalent
Other 2% Marketing 15%
IT in Financial
3%
Services
Logistics 17%
Property 2%
Other 1%
Our panel members control personal budgets of up to £200m each and come from
organisations with turnovers up to and beyond £1bn.
233 people completed the online questionnaire. Their responses were both entirely
confidential and strictly anonymous. This report analyses the results and comments
where appropriate.
We’d like to thank everyone who took time to complete the questionnaire.
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2. Headline findings
 44% of organisations do not currently spend any budget on social media. OF those
that do the average percentage of departmental budget spend is 2.8%.
 Over half the panel are likely to increase their spend on social media, 40%
moderately and 13% drastically.
 In terms of the social media platforms individuals use in the workplace, LinkedIn is
by far the most popular, three times more so than 2nd placed Twitter.
 Only 5% of organisations have strict ROI measures in place for social media. Almost
two thirds don’t measure ROI at all.
 LinkedIn and Blogs are viewed as the most effective social media.
 The 2 most popular areas for employing social media within organisations are
towards customer engagement and brand promotion. These are followed by general
marketing and building web traffic.
 In over half of organisations the marketing department is responsible for social
media content.
 On average 5.5% of individuals within organisations are using social media for
business purposes.
 A high proportion of the panel still perceive social media as ‘still more of a personal
than a business tool’.
The full results follow.
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3. Social media - results
3.1. Current spending on social media.
The panel was asked what percentage of their departmental budget is devoted to social
media.
%
None 44%
Less than 2% 38%
2% - 5% 10%
6% - 10% 3%
11% - 15% 3%
15%+ 1%
Comment
 Despite the perceived fixation with social media throughout business these days, a
huge 44% of organisations say they do not currently spend any budget on it.
Recently B&Q announced a planned £35 million spend on social media over the next
3 years…
 Of those that do, just over 1/3 spend less than 2% whilst 10% spend between 2%
and 5%.
 The average percentage of departmental budget spent on social media is 1.6%. The
average amount excluding those who don’t spend anything is 2.8%.
 Next the panel was asked whether they intend to increase their spending on social
media.
Comment
 The highest proportion expects their spending on social media to remain similar to
now. This is more than likely to include those who don’t currently spend anything on
social media.
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 Over half however are likely to increase their spend, 40% moderately and 13%
drastically. Correspondingly, only 2% expect to reduce their spending.
3.2. Different social media platforms
Next we asked the panel which of the following social media platforms they used both in
in terms of their organisation and on a personal level within their role.
Comment
 LinkedIn is the most popular social media platform, jointly for organisations and way
out on its own for personal use. For the latter, over 80% of the panel use it within
their role, whilst 55% of organisations use it.
 Facebook and Twitter are the other joint top social media platforms for organisations
with 55% using them. They are followed by blogs, 40%, and YouTube, 34%.
 LinkedIn is way ahead of any other outlet for usage by individuals within their role.
The 2nd most popular is Twitter, which just over 1 in 4 of the panel use, followed by
blogs with 24%.
 The panel was asked whether they actively measure the ROI that social media
generate for their organisation.
Yes, we have strict measuring in place 5%
Yes, but it’s an approximate science 32%
No 63%
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 Quite remarkable – out of everyone using social media only 5% are confidently
measuring it for ROI. A gap in the market one thinks!
3.3. Effectiveness of different media types.
Following on from whether or not the panel measures what they are doing with social
media, we asked the slightly less scientific ‘how effective’ do they feel each platform is
in terms of overall benefit to their organisation.
The table shows a mean score with 4 being vey effective, 3 quite effective, 2 not very
effective and 1 not at all effective.
Comment
 There is no clear winner in terms of effectiveness: no area achieves a quite effective
or better average score.
 The 2 outlets that score highest are LinkedIn and Blogs, which achieve average
scores of 2.7 and 2.6 respectively. It is of some satisfaction that LinkedIn scores the
highest, bearing in mind its much higher usage compared to others.
 MySpace scores the least, and is used by only a minority of the panel.
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3.4. Social media as part of a wider strategy.
Next we asked in which of the following areas does the panel employ social media as
part of their strategy and which applications have been a success.
 In every single area where social media is used, the figure employing it is higher
than the corresponding one seeing success as a result.
 The 2 most popular areas for employing social media within organisations are
towards customer engagement and brand promotion. These are followed by general
marketing and building web traffic.
 At the other end of the scale social media is used far less in terms of customer
complaints, sales support and market research.
 In terms of success, (thankfully) the top 2 areas where social media is employed
correlate to the top 2 areas where organisations are having success using it!
 Others areas where there’s a noticeable difference between employment and success
include generating new sales, general marketing and market research. This table
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merely reinforces the previous stat that very few of organisations are (or know how
to) measuring ROI from social media.
3.5. Responsibility for social media.
We next asked how the panel manages their social media strategy.
%
Lead the social media work yourself 12%
Share leadership amongst the team 39%
Use an outside consultant / agency 9%
None of the above 40%
Comment
 Just over 1 in 10 of the panel manages the social media work themselves, whilst
almost 4 times as many share it amongst the team.
 It would be interested to see if the 9% that use an outside consultant / agency were
the same group that accurately measures ROI from social media (or at least were
told they did!).
 Next we asked which department is mainly responsible for social media content
within organisations.
 In over half of organisations the marketing department is responsible for social
media content.
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 We also asked what percentage of individuals within organisations use social media
for business purposes.
%
Less than 2% 37%
2% - 5% 22%
6% -10% 13%
10% - 15% 5%
15%+ 10%
Not relevant 13%
Average 5.5%
3.6. Levels of agreement.
Next we gave the panel a series of statements and asked them to signify their
agreement levels with each one. The graph shows a mean score with 5 being strongly
agree, 3 neither agree nor disagree and 1 strongly disagree.
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 The aspects that receives the highest levels of agreement are ‘spending on social
media is bound to increase’ and (more contentiously) ‘social media is still more a
personal than a business tool’.
 Areas that received high levels of disagreement are the panel’s intention to employ
social media consultants to move forward and having a relaxed attitude to
employees using personal social media at work.
3.7. Happiness.
Finally, for the 2nd consecutive wave we asked the panel about their levels of happiness.
Not a particularly scientific question (or anything to do with social media), but one
nevertheless we thought could be interesting. We intend to repeat this question every 2
months.
 Good news! The majority of the panel claim to be happy; 17% very and 43%
moderately.
 A further 33% aren’t necessarily unhappy; their mood just varies from day do day!
 As for the unhappy ones (luckily a small minority) 5% are pretty miserable and 3%
are downright grumpy.
 The figures are also up from January when we first asked the question – though only
just!
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4. Further Information
We are always looking to build our panel with senior professionals from UK businesses.
If you wish to join or would like to recommend someone else, please see the contact
details below. Further criteria for participation can be found on page 2.
This research is produced by Richmond Events, who would like to express their gratitude
to all those who took part.
Previous research titles undertaken by the UK Business panel:
 Leadership
 Change management
 Career planning
 Economic outlook (08, 09, 10 & 11)
 Recruitment & Retention
 Tax
 Transport
 The Environment
 Culture Change
 The Internet
 Personal development
 People management
 Training
 The future
 Attitudes towards the Coalition
 New Government priorities
 Business Personality
For details of other research available please contact:
David Clark
Head of Research
+44 208 487 2203
dclark@richmondevents.com
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