English press release: Social media monitoring in Belgium

1. Koksijde September 8th, 2010
Social media is growing at phenomenal rate. The popularity of social media such as Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, Video and Photo platforms together with the ease of use of technology
is now making social media a great tool for companies and their marketers to get closer to their
customers. So many companies are taking steps towards social media.
However, social media implies two-way communication (interaction with/engagement of the
customers) and presents therefore a number of new challenges for companies: visibility,
monitoring and engagement. When these 3 elements are ignored, a lot of opportunities are
lost. It also demonstrates that social media is not integrated into the company strategy. The
market study looks at all 3 areas.
Limited visibility.
Many companies (71%) do have some kind of presence in social media meaning a business
profile, but less 1 in 4 (25%) make that visible on their website. LinkedIn seems to be most
popular social media platform where companies have such a profile. Facebook and Twitter are
still not much used by companies.
Are you really listening?
When it comes to listening, there are 3 types that should be covered: (1) What is said in the
“cloud of social media platforms” about the company, its brands and its people; (2) What is
posted on the social media platforms/profiles of the companies (opportunities to engage) (3)
What are your own employees posting on social media platforms . The research revealed that
companies are not listening… Twitter is the best monitored social media platform, while
Facebook is really used as additional advertising channel.
No, Lack of engagement!
Social media platforms are mainly used as a marketing tool and messages left on company
pages are a lot of the time left unanswered. Only 45% of all Twitter messages were responded
to while less than 5% of the messages on Facebook were answered!
Individuals responsible for corporate social media accounts – if companies have appointed
them – treat the company social media profiles with far less respect and professionalism than
their own personal accounts.

2. This research is the result of a market study done by Vanguard Leadership in August 2010. In
this market study we have used social media and the internet to build the dataset. We have
analyzed 540 websites of companies (from Bel-20 over Trends Gazellen to general companies
across all sectors). Monitoring was done by posting messages on Twitter, Facebook and
Linkedin to check the monitoring behavior and response of companies. The complete report and
the presentation can be found on slideshare (report: http://slidesha.re/cN7RF9 or
http://scr.bi/9LrqbO – presentation: http://slidesha.re/8XeWhg or http://scr.bi/cxifMV).
Contact:
Mic Adam
Social Media Policy Creator/General Manager
Adammic@vanguard-leadership.be
Phone: +32 478 50 41 35
Vanguard Leadership (www.vanguard-leadership.be) is a company that helps protect
companies and individuals protect their reputation in social media by providing awareness
presentations, social media inventories, creating social media policies, training and social media
monitoring.