Corporate Online Reputation Blind Spot?

Zeno Group‘s 2012 Digital Readiness Survey revealed a striking truth: Businesses are burned out on social media and a substantial number of executives fail to consider their social media online reputation, an area of valuable customer views and insights, when making business decisions. In fact, more than 33% of executives surveyed stated that the CEO of their company does not care or cares little about the company’s online reputation in social media. And more than 10% of executives said their companies would not engage at all to defend their online reputation.

Generally, the survey found that smaller businesses (those with fewer than 10,000 employees) and business-to-business (B2B) companies were less likely to engage with their customers via social media.

Here’s what Zeno found:

• B2B companies lag their B2C counterparts – their CEOs are less likely to consider social media in decision-making, they are slower to engage in a crisis, and they are twice as likely to refuse to engage online audiences at all.
• The bigger the company, the more likely that the CEO will consider social media in their decision-making. In fact, 43% of smaller firms said their executives rarely or never consider social media reputation.
• Smaller does not necessarily mean more nimble in social media. A fast response to an online crisis is more likely in larger companies

There is still much opportunity to introduce the concept of social media reputation into the C-suite. Too many organizations missing opportunities, either to advance their reputations or defend them.

By engaging non-customer stakeholders that are active online – such as industry analysts, investors and academics, among others – business can turn these groups into not only advocates and amplifiers during good times, but also trusted voices who can bring credibility to a company’s response in a time of crisis.

Source

Tags: B2B, Corporate, Online-Reputation-Management, Social Media, Social Networks