Australian Social Media Study: Business Adoption of Social Media Outpaces Consumer Demand

With approximately one fourth of my fabulous readers being Australian based, I thought you would find the results of a research titled “Business Adoption of Social Media Outpaces Consumer Demand“, by the research firm Fifth Quadrant, to be of high interest.

The following are some stats taken from the study:

• 70% of Australian organisations now offer social media as a customer service channel. However, just under a third (31%) of consumers have used social media as a customer service channel to interact with brands in the last 3 months.
• Facebook is currently Australian consumers’ first choice platform to engage with brands, followed by online forums and communities, and YouTube. However, the majority of Australian brands have taken to Twitter to engage with their customers online.
• In order from highest to lowest, the majority of Australian social media users for customer service are: Generation Y with 46%, Generation X with 39%, Baby Boomers with 24% and Silent Generation with 16%.

Basically, we see a high disconnect here between Australian brands and their consumers, online. Chris Kirby, Head of Research at Fifth Quadrant says:

“Simply creating a new service channel then standing back and waiting for the customers to come won’t work. If organisations want to offer customer service through social media, they need to go to the networks that their customers use. They also need to treat social networks as they would any other communications channel. This means developing realistic long term resourcing plans.”

And the same goes for your crisis and issues communications plan. When it comes to reaching the right audience in a crisis or online issue, nothing positive will come from publishing your communications to platforms on which your audience is not present. Having 70% of Australian companies offering customer service through social media is awesome! But the main focus needs to be in determining where your audience is, prefers to be and will turn to in a crisis, and developing your communications plan accordingly.