Web 2.0 and social media marketing: a conundrum for most professional services firms

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: December 3rd, 2007 | 0 Comments | Posted in: Marketing online, New media, Social media, Technology

A recent survey completed by the Professional Marketing Forum in the UK has identified that the marketing experts in professional services firms are unsure and slow to adopt Web 2.0 and social media marketing strategies.

The 191 PM Forum members who responded to the November 2007 were made up as follows:

• 50% of work for firms of between 251 and 10,000 employees
• 44% for firms with UK as the primary market with 25% for the North American market
• 55% are in the legal sector with 15% in accountancy
• 70% work in marketing
• 17% are from general management
• 37% are managers
• 25% are directors
• and 13% are managing partners.

The key findings included that:

• 18% of firms ban Facebook on office computers as a ‘time waster’
• 20% allow free access anytime arguing their people should be trusted
• Large firms are actively exploring the possibility of upgrading intranets with Web 2.0 elements including RSS, blogging and  social bookmarking
• No firms are reporting commercial success through using Web 2.0 sites.

FEARS ABOUT FACEBOOK
20% of firms are considering an official presence on Facebook with the sites consisting of simple items including links to their main website, including photos and bio’s of people and networking information. This proportion rises to 27% for large firms with the target audiences are (in order of priority) for the Facebook profile being graduates, current employees and clients.
47% of firms still have no formal policy about unofficial groups on Facebook, 13% tolerate them and 21% ban them.

In fact is was the managing partners who were less in favour of social networking sites versus the marketers who responded in the survey.

Perhaps the participants of the survey would find it helpful to read my previous article about why I don’t believe employers should not ban Facebook at work.