FredNMT 2013 Social Business Survey

2013
Social Business
Survey
Frederick County, Maryland

#frednmt · @jesshibb · storiesandideas.com
This is our second year conducting this survey, and I’ve tried to pull the most interesting information. Hopefully this will put today’s discussions into perspective.

About the survey
82 responses
Collected Nov. 2012 – Feb. 2013
Promoted via email & social media

Just a little background on the survey. Many of you probably participated. There were 82 responses, collected from last November through this month. The Chamber and FCC promoted it
via email and social media.

Age Groups
16% Generation Y
35% Generation X
44% Baby Boomers
5% Silent Generation
To give you an idea of who participated, a majority of responses were from business professionals age 33 to 67.

Job Functions
36% Owner/Exec
21% Mar/Comm
12% Management
11% Sales/Development (20% other)

In this year’s survey, over a third of the respondents were business owners or executives. Other top job functions were marketing and communications, management, and sales and
development. 20% were other roles, including administrative and HR.

2012 2013
Devices
desktop

laptop

tablet

smartphone

0 1 2 3 4
never rarely sometimes frequently can’t live
without it

I think it’s interesting to see year-to-year comparisons, so the rest of the charts I’m showing you will be set up that way.

This year, desktop use declined slightly, but laptop and smartphone use were up. The biggest jump, not surprisingly, is in tablet use. More and more people have iPads.

63%
can’t live without
a smartphone
(up from 54% in 2012)
The Noun Project ·
Ross Sokolovski

63% of people said they “can’t live without” a smartphone. Last year only 54% of people said that.

Local Info
2012 2013

search
engine

word of
mouth

social
media

newspaper
(website)

email
newsletter
0 1 2 3 4
never rarely monthly weekly daily

We gave respondents a list of 12 types of media, and asked “When searching for information about local businesses and the local community, how often do you use the following
sources?”

These are the top ﬁve sources of information. Social media and email newsletters increased quite a bit over last year.

Traditional Media
Printed newspaper,
local TV broadcast, and
local radio broadcast
were down from 2012.
Digital media and WOM
showed increases.

Out of a dozen sources, traditional media were the only ones that declined. Printed newspaper, local TV broadcast. and local radio broadcast were down, and digital media (including word
of mouth) were up.

Keep in mind, we asked about searching for information about local businesses and the local community. That doesn’t mean no one is listening to the radio anymore, it just means they’re
not necessarily turning to that format as often for local community information.

Interestingly, newspaper websites, radio websites, and TV websites all showed increases.

72%
use a search engine
(i.e., Google) daily
(up from 65% in 2012) The Noun
Project ·
Michelle Ann

72% of respondents reported using a search engine like Google every single day. (Personally, I think the other 28% are lying. Who doesn’t search online every day?) That’s up from 65%
last year, where it was also the highest ranked source of local information.

Online Activities
2012 2013

social
networking

view
photos

read
reviews

share
photos

read
blogs

0 1 2 3 4
never rarely monthly weekly daily

For the next question, we gave a list of 15 items and asked participants “How often do you engage in the following activities online?”

These are the top ﬁve activities. Social media edged out “viewing photos” for the top ranking this year. Notice the somewhat large increase in sharing photos -- I think we can attribute at
least some of that to the proliferation of smartphones and photo apps.

15 out of 15
activities surveyed
showed an increase in
engagement over 2012

We’re doing more of everything! All 15 online activities showed an increase from last year. I think this is another trend we can at least partially attribute to the rise of mobile devices.

68%
use a social
network daily
(up from 60% in 2012)

68% of us are using a social network every day, up from 60% last year.

Using SoMe at Work
2012 2013

100

75

50

25

0
yes, no limits yes, restrictions not permitted not sure

We asked participants: “Are you permitted to use social media at work?” 57% of people answered yes, with no limitations, which more than double last year’s 26%. It looks like a lot of
employees gained social media privileges over the past year.

Daily Networks
2012 2013

100

75

50

25

0
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+

We also asked “How often do you use the following social media for business or professional development?” and gave respondents 18 networks to rate. Not surprisingly, Facebook is at
the top with almost 44% of respondents logging in every day.

18 out of 18
networks surveyed
showed an increase in
engagement over 2012

Again, we’re doing more of everything. All 18 networks showed an increase in activity.

Time Spent
2012 2013

100

75

50

25

0
More time Less time Same amount Not sure

So we’ve gained some insight into people’s current online habits. For the next couple questions, we asked about their future intentions. First, we asked, “In 2013, how much time will you
commit to using social media for business and professional development?” 63% said they’d spend more time than last year, up from 43% in 2012.

Between this and the large increase in the percentage of employees permitted to use social media, we can see that businesses are much more decisive about social media’s role in the
workplace.

ROI
2012 2013

100

75

50

25

0
Positive Negative Neutral/No Return Not sure

We also asked “What type of return do you see on your use of social media for business and professional development?” Just like last year, the results mirror those from the last question.
59% are seeing positive ROI, up from 43% last year.

It seems like most of the gains are coming from the “neutral” or “not sure” category, which also tells me that businesses are probably getting better at tracking the return on investment.

An age-old
question
Is higher ROI
driving more
engagement,
or is more
engagement
leading to
higher ROI?
The Noun Project · Carly Vanderlee

Which came ﬁrst, the chicken or the egg? One thing we’re not able to tell is whether increasing ROI is driving an increase in time spent on social media, or if spending more time is resulting
in more positive outcomes.

Primary Goals
2012 2013

100

75

50

25

0
advance promote collaborate learning/ research ﬁnd local
org’s product/ and prof. purchase stores and
mission service connect develop. decisions services

This is the last, and possibly the most important, question. We asked “What is your or your company’s primary goal for using social media in 2013?”

I hate to end on a negative note, but the results here concern me. There are huge increases in the “overtly promotional” categories, and losses in the learning and researching categories.

If you’re on Twitter or Facebook and it seems like more companies are just posting advertising messages instead of engaging, you’re not imagining it.

I think the takeaway here is that to stand out from the crowd, you have to be genuinely interested in your audience. Instead of trying to sell them something or convince them of something,
try asking questions. Post things that will make someone’s life better or help them ﬁnd the information they need.

Thank you!

Thank you to the Chamber for letting me slice and dice the data, which is something I love doing. I think they’re going to make the survey results publicly available so you can dig into the
data, too.

FredNMT 2013 Social Business Survey

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