Social Business has been a buzz world for the past few years among companies globally. So what is social business? Social business in a nutshell, can be defined as the way in which a company functions and generates value for stakeholders, suppliers, customers, employees and partners.
Fig 1: The Anatomy of a Social Business
According to IBM, social businesses exhibit three distinct characteristics:
- Engaged
- Transparent
- Nimble
Now that we have established a definition for social business, let’s look at how Australia is adapting social business and the state of it.
Although Australia was one of the last countries in the developed world to adopt social business, it is now beginning to reap the rewards of it. Recent research indicates that enterprise level social media in Australia may grow by 25% in 2013 and 2014. Statistics indicate that social media adoption in personal lives of Australia is high, however at enterprise level Australia scored on 41.6%, as per data released by KPMG. This clearly indicates that there is a disparity in social media usage at enterprise level and personal level.
However, this trend is beginning to change with more and more businesses open to the idea of enterprise social media. They key reason for this is the success that has been achieved by the companies that have already reaped the benefits of social business. Here are few success stories of social business implementation in Australia;
- Canon – The Australian arm of the company has initiated “World of EOS”. This platform helps photographers of any skill level share their passion for photography via the EOS platform as well as social media channels. According to Canon, after the “World of EOS” was integrated into their marketing efforts, unit sales have grown by 23% in 2011 and brand awareness among the general Australian population has increased from 26% to 31%.
- The major success story of social media engagement in Australia has been by Tourism Australia (aka See Australia). This campaign has already attracted more 2.9 million Facebook likes and a overseas visitor count of 1.6 million in the first quarter of 2012 – a 4.1% increase when compared to 2011.
These are some of the major examples of enterprise level social media success in Australia. While we are still at infancy stages in adopting social media for business, the positive news is that the audience is ready made. There are over 10 million Australians on Facebook and 1.8 million on Twitter, the audience is already on the social media channels, companies simply need to create a targeted strategy to engage with them.
But, Australian companies need to act fast to implement social media for business, cause their global counterparts have already implemented social business and enjoying the return on investment from it.
Few Australian Social Business Facts from the KPMG research…
- Survey of Australian managers revealed that 42% of organisations are using social media.
- 10% of managers did not have any idea about the social media status of their company.
- Australia featured in the lower end of adoption on companies planning to expand the uses of social media for business.
These results indicate that Australia is still lagging behind in terms of social business adoption. However with the recent successes by Australian companies and consumer willingness to engage indicates that Australian businesses will not ignore enterprise social media for too long.
Sources:
- Whitepaper : The State of Social Business in Australia 2012 by Dion Hinchcliffe & James Dellowhttp://www.slideshare.net/headshiftoz/the-state-of-social-business-in-australia-2012-whitepaper
- Press Release : Local business yet to capitalise on Australian’s love of social mediahttp://www.kpmg.com/AU/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Press-Releases/Pages/Press-Release-Local-Business-Yet-02-Aug-2011.aspx
- Australian Tourism Off to Strong Start in 2012
- http://www.investinaustralia.com/news/australian-tourism-strong-start-2012
Social Media Business Consultant | Internet (Web) Marketing Strategist Speaker | Trainer
Based in Sydney, Australia, Logan has been an avid & passionate social media user since the advent of Facebook. As the Social Media Business Consultant with over 30 years experience in the travel and hospitality industry, Logan is focused on guiding organisations through the four stages of social media for business – Education, Strategy, Implementation and On-going Management. If your business needs expert assistance on creating a custom Social Media and Search Engine Optimisation Strategy , contact us via logan@logannathan.com
