The study by Appirio surveyed over 300 managers and employees from across the UK and the US.
Nearly 45% of respondents said their company is still researching or testing social tools and strategies. However, 13% of respondents said they would label their company as "anti-social" saying there is no investment or interest in social media at all.
35% of businesses said their companies had created budgets to make their business more social. The top three areas of investment were establishing social media policies (47%), building out a presence on social sites (37%) and adding social features to existing internal applications (31%).
"As business and technical advisors, we know social tools and processes can have a significant impact on a company’s brand, relationships and bottom line," said Narinder Singh, Chief Strategy Officer at Appirio. "But to be truly successful with social, companies must listen to the actual users of those tools and processes rather than force something from the top down. Whether it’s politics or technology, we all too often forget to consider the people’s perspective and fail because our strategies are based on false assumptions."
Appirio says that research has shown companies that are more advanced in using social and collaborative technologies have reported higher profit margins and improved market share.
Respondents also said that just investing in social tools and processes was not enough. When respondents what the biggest change their company could make to become more social, nearly 30% said changing the company to become a more social media oriented culture.
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