Companies failing to track and respond to social media

The survey reveals that 39pc of businesses have no social media tracking in place at all. This breaks down to 51pc of B2B and 22pc of B2C companies with no tracking.

Fifty-five percent of companies ignore customers who provide feedback via social media, by having no process in place to respond. This increases to 69pc for B2B companies, compared to 42pc for B2C.

Sixty-seven percent of companies do not measure or quantify social media – increasing to 75pc for B2B companies. For those that do have some form of quantification, 56pc just count the comments and followers. Only 4pc have any form of sentiment analysis.

Sixty percent of businesses do not have an integrated social media strategy, meaning that they either do nothing, track or follow up only.

The survey finds that North America leads the way with 43pc of North American companies having a follow up process compared to about 25pc in other regions.

“Businesses recognise the need for a social media strategy, however many are challenged in putting an effective strategy in place,” said Richard Owen, chief executive officer, Satmetrix. “While 77pc of consumers post about products, 67pc of businesses have no means of measuring what is being said, and less than one in 20 have any insight into the sentiment of what is being said. This is both a huge threat and a massive lost opportunity. Not only are companies running the risk of losing customers by not addressing their issues shared online, but they are also walking past the opportunity to capitalize on positive comments made on the social web.”