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Social media use in Finnish workplaces

Survey, June 2011by Prewise and Frank

Communications

How the survey was doneWhat was the objective?• To find out how working-age Finns use social mediaWho carried it out?• Frank Communications and PrewiseWhat was the method?• Internet survey, invitations sent by e-mail and through

social media channelsWho took part?• N=1,080• 93% responded to e-mail invitation• 83 % use social media channels• 67 % aged 35-54 years• 42 % are top or middle management • 30 % work at public sector• 43 % work in organisations with more than 1,000

employees

Most popular social media channel: company-specific servicesMost popular (used at least weekly)

• Company-specific services (83 %)

• Facebook (63 %)• Information services,

e.g. Wikipedia and Quora (51 %)

• Video sharing services, e.g.YouTube and Vimeo (51 %)

Least known

• Plaxo (79 %)• Foursquare (70 %)• Directories, e.g.

StumbleUpon (69 %)

Note: 59 % of respondents are familiar with Twitter but don’t use it.

Workplace use focuses on work-related services

Instant messaging services (e.g. Yammer, MS Messenger) (54 %)

Document sharing services (e.g. GoogleDocs, SharePoint, SlideShare)

(57 %)

Company-specific channels (82 %)

0% 50% 100%

Favourite spare-time activity: sharing knowledge

Discussion forums (e.g. Suomi24.fi, HS.fi, Reddit) (52 %)

Product reviews (e.g. Amazon, IMDB, PC World) (58 %)

Image sharing services (e.g. Flickr, Picasa) (68 %)

0% 50% 100%

Popular both at work and home

Video sharing services (e.g. YouTube) (50 %)

Blogs - as a reader (52 %)

Facebook (56 %)

0% 20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Social media are deemed important

• Approximately half of the respondents regard social media as important to them both at work and at spare time

• 35 % do not regard them as important

Social media help to keep track of thingsMost important personal reasons for social media use

• Finding and sharing information (71 %)

• Following news (63 %)• Keeping in touch with

friends and relatives (44 %)

Least important personal reasons

• Recruitment (87 %)• I tell people where I

am and what I do (83 %)

• I discuss events in my life (81 %)

• I feel I am part of a larger community (75 %)

• I publish my company’s news (73 %)

• I look for jobs (73 %)

Free comments: ”this is how I use social media”

• ”I influence people and society”

• ”Networking with professionals in my field”

• I google and look for information on clients and competitors”

• ”Finding services: handyman, cleaner, seamstress”

• ”Charity”

Privacy issues greatest obstacle for social media use

Key obstacles

• I don’t want to share information about myself online (70 %)

• I don’t want to share information about my employer online (57 %)

• I prefer other ways of keeping in touch (53 %)

• I don’t trust the data security of social media services (52 %)

• I don’t have time (52 %)

Least important obstacles

• I don’t know how to use social media services (78 %)

• I’m afraid my employer will get a bad impression of me (77 %)

• My employer feels negatively about social media services (73 %)

Free comments: ”this prevents me from using social media”

• ”The use of social media services is strictly banned at my workplace, even though they would add value to the work”

• ”My employer has not allocated resources to additional use of social media”

• ”I don’t know where my employer stands on social media”

• ”I don’t want to share my private life online, only my work life”

Privacy is strongly protected

• I consider carefully, what information to publish (91 %)

• I consider carefully, whom to include in my networks (83 %)

• I utilise privacy settings and limit the visibility of information concerning me (70 %)

Spouses are accepted as contacts

Customer / client (73 %)

Subordinate (77 %)

Supervisor (78 %)

Mother in law (85 %)

Mother (90 %)

Spouse (94 %)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

I would accept their contact request

Note: more than 50 % would accept a friend of a friend as a contact.

Selling something? Don’t contact me

Sales rep whose products / services I did buy (66 %)

Sales rep whose products /services I didn't buy (76 %)

Someone completely unknown to me (96 %)

0% 20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

I wouldn’t accept their contact request

Work dilemmas stay at the workplace

• 85 % would ask advice from a colleague through a company’s internal service

• Only 6 % would ask for advice in a completely open public service

Social media use continues to grow

Increased significantly (19 %)

Increased somewhat (45 %)

Remained the same (31 %)

Decreased somewhat (4 %)

Decreased significantly (1 %)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Over the past year, my social media use has …

Free comments: ”this is what social media means to me”• ”Professional community, contact with

professionals whom it would be near impossible to come across IRL”

• ”Protection of privacy or lack thereof is a threat”• ”Blogs give you product reviews and tips from

people, not from companies plugging their products”

• ”From a company standpoint a means to engage where a large part of our customers have conversations and influence their friends’ buying decisions”

• ”I follow the FB pages of companies whose brands I have become attached to. Companies’ level of activity in social media is key to how their public image develops”

Internal guidelines most common way to define company use

Certain services are banned/blocked (29 %)

We have established practices (29 %)

Our organisation has a social media strategy / action plan (35 %)

Use of certain services is encouraged (36 %)

We have internal guidelines on social media use (59 %)

Free comments: ”this is how we use social media”• ”Social media use can be considered if

it helps our organisation move forward”

• ”The use of social media at work is strictly forbidden if it’s not an integral part of your job description”

Many respondents also stated that a social media strategy is currently in the works or that social media use has not been defined in any way.

Guidelines and practices on the increase

• In a 2009 survey by Prewise, managers expressed confusion over lack of guidelines and the newness of social media

• 56 % of the companies surveyed had no guidelines for social media use

• 37 % had some type of guidelines or practices

A channel for information gathering and communication

• Information gathering (63 %)• External communication (62 %)• Internal communication (57 %)• Marketing (54 %)• Distribution of product information

(53 %)• Employer profile maintenance (51

%)

Note: Crowdsourcing is used regularly in 28 % of respondents’ work places

Free comments: ”this is how social media could be useful”

• ”Sharing information with SharePoint, Skype, perhaps an internal wiki and LinkedIn to some extent”

• ”Marketing trend research, PR”• Dialogue with citizens regarding current

legislative and development projects”• ”Interface to customers, partners”• ”Training, orientation, service and

product development”

Recruitment was also mentioned several times.

Social media channels most used in organisations

• Instant messaging services, e.g. Yammer, MS Messenger (66 %)

• Discussion forums (59 %)• Document sharing services, e.g.

SharePoint, Google Docs (57 %)

Top management is in charge of social media

• Top management (52 %)• PR/communications (48 %)• ICT (39 %)• Marketing (24 %)• Business units independently

(19 %)• Don’t know (15 %)

Resources and data security greatest obstacles

Lack of resources (52 %) Data security issues (48 %)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Note: only 6 % stated management’s lack of interest as an obstacle to social media use.

Free comments: ”these limit our social media use”• ”Key personnel lack the skills and

those who do have skills lack the power to move things forward or create the necessary networks”

• ”I feel that in our organisation everything new is regarded as a potential threat to security. Only when something becomes established, can we consider using it.”

Social media use continues to grow

Don't know (8 %)

I don't think we'll increase our use (4 %)

Within the next 5 years (6 %)

Within the next 2 years (18 %)

Within the next year (33 %)

Within the next 6 months (31 %)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Do you believe your organisation will increase its social media use…

Free comments: ”this is how social media will develop in the workplace”

• ”Public-sector organisations will become increasingly involved. External clients will be contacted. Employer profiles will be built using social media. A modern, forward-looking organisation is involved in social media”

• ”Internal social media channels will become business as usual, SharePoint etc. will replace hard drive storage”

• We have a specific marketing communication group that continuously develops e.g. customer service, PR and training, competitions etc. We receive more detailed reports and feedback, and consumers can become directly involved in e.g. product development. Speeds up e.g. handling of complaints”

Want to hear more?

Frank CommunicationsTel. +358 (0)9 4241 3377frank@frankcommunications.fihttp://frankcommunications.fiFrank on LinkedInhttp://twitter.com/frankcomms