Johannesburg, 04 Jan 2012
South Africans are increasingly using social media in the workplace, and favour Twitter over Facebook.
This was revealed in a survey conducted by ITWeb and Deloitte late last year.
Seventy percent of respondents said they used social media in the business environment. This is up from 55% in 2010, an unprecedented level of growth, according to Deloitte of Tomorrow manager Mithun Kalan.
“We expected to see an increase in usage of social media and a shift from Facebook to Twitter. What has surprised us was the magnitude of change - 55% to 70% is a big change; this must have put strain on the bandwidth that businesses consume.”
He adds that the shift from Facebook to Twitter is also noteworthy.
“Last year, 69% [of respondents] used Facebook and 61% Twitter. This year's results are 69% and 70%, respectively, and show that Twitter is preferred. This may be linked to bandwidth, too, as the majority of bandwidth used will comprise text and not applications, images and videos.”
Deloitte Digital senior manager Greg Comline believes Twitter has seen an increase in growth within the business space because it allows a “one-way friendship” that is quicker to form and easier to maintain than the two-way friendship required on Facebook. He also notes that an increasing number of CEOs have started using Twitter in recent months and that this is a factor in the platform's increased uptake.
Overall, the survey showed that social media is mostly being used by businesses as a means of customer communication, either in PR or in customer service. However, in comparison with previous results, Comline says the findings indicate a shift from social media as a mere marketing function, to a tool used by the CEO and operations in the business.
“There are untapped opportunities to encourage social media within businesses for employees,” he says.
Another area of untapped potential indicated by the survey, according to Comline, is in measuring return on investment and using data collected from social media to inform corporate strategy.
Kalan agrees: “It is important that businesses know that social media does not have to be a 'soft skill'. There are many metrics that can be tracked. Return on investment can be calculated with greater accuracy. Conversations and relationships can be mapped out visually to blend content and context. There is more science involved than they realise,” he says.
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