Over the past two months, I have been working with a small team at Burson-Marsteller in Sydney (my agency) on a PR research project which looked at the use of social media by the biggest brands in Australia. This has been a very enjoyable and interesting project, which resulted in some great media exposure for the agency this week:
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The Australian: Big Brands Are Failing Social Media Test (Simon Canning)
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Marketing Magazine: Social Media Still Misunderstood by Brands
One of the challenges that we encountered with this study was sourcing a list of the top brands in Australia. Initially, our intention was to survey the ASX100 but this presented us with a few challenges, not least the increase in project scope that this would lead to. Many of the companies in the ASX100 own multiple brands and so we would have been presented with a challenge of what to include and what not to include. Including everything was not an option.
Ultimately, we opted for the Interbrand Top Twenty Australian Brands report for 2009. Although relatively limited in scope we felt that this was a good option as it covered a broad spectrum of Australian brands in various sectors while enabling us to identify some industry sector trends in financial services and retail.
Our thoughts on the findings are included in the media coverage and in our release/ report.
Ultimately, my view is that many social media campaigns continue to be the preserve of the PR and marketing department. I don’t believe that business leaders have recognised the need for authentic communications or the benefits of social media, as a component of PR strategy. The vast majority seem focused on the risk over the reward. The US is a different story. Corporations are far more advanced when it comes to social media. Its becoming ingrained within standard business and comms practice, we’re yet to see this in Australia.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this if we put the fact that Australia has a more conservative business culture to one side. First, the majority of the world’s IT industry is based in the US. Clearly, the IT sector has been an early adopter, leading the way for many other American industries.
Second, many large American corporations faced serious PR and reputational issues as a result of the GFC and social media provided them with the tools they needed to begin re-building and re-orienting their reputations and corporate culture.
Neither of these factors apply in Australia.
We’re seeing a lot of interest from our clients and are actively engaged in this space with many organisations. I am looking forward to seeing a more flattended, transparent and communicative corporate culture in Australia. We are hoping to speed up the process by providing good advice and compelling insights.
The fact that corporate blogging is virtually non-existent is evidence, for me, that we are yet to see this change at the highest levels of Australian business.
We produced the following report of the results and developed a media release, which was offered to The Australian as an exclusive. There’s more where this came from. B-M Australia will be announcing additional research over the coming weeks and months.
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Nice post Daniel,
Firstly, it appears there may be an issue with the BMAustralia Slideshare page, I was unable to “Follow” it via any of the big 3 browsers..just would not work.
Nice to see the retailers leading the way, it makes sense as they would have the biggest opportunity to realize a ROI straight up.
Telstra are having a real crack, I wonder if the initiative came from inside or possibly a progressive agency they engage with.
I feel the crunch will come once the SM tipping point is reached, smart phones become truly affordable and there are thousands of interactions needing attending to.
There will have to be some tech involved to handle the volume…maybe these “intelligent agent” ideas that were wheeled out, 10 or more years ago.
Be nice if you had Disqus as your comment system, it’s a great way to aggregate one’s comments around the interwebs and provides and easy login system.
Cheers
Australia to change corporate culture just to drive social media? Can this be really possible?
@MariJewel.
Social media is a means to an end (for corporates) not an end in itself.
My point is that I don’t think we will see a genuine shift in corporate use of social media in Australia until we see a change in corporate culture, which could be driven by generational change, competitive pressure, global best practices or simply the passing of time leading to a deeper understanding of and interest in customers.
I think a more open, communicative and transparent corporate culture in Australia would benefit all involved, including the organisations themselves.