So, your company is trying to decide whether or not it needs a presence in the social media space. But you’re really not sure if your customers (or potential customers) want you or need you to be involved in the social media arena. Well, maybe the results of a recent survey from The 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study will help you decide what to do. The study presents the findings of an online survey conducted September 11-12, 2008 by Opinion Research Corporation among 1,092 adults comprising 525 men and 567 women 18 years of age and older. The survey focussed on how Americans use or expect to use social media to interact with businesses. Here are some of the key results:

• 60% of those surveyed interact with companies using social media

Of those 60%:

• 93% say a company should have a presence in social media
• 85% say a company should not only be present but also interact with its customers via social media
• 56% say they feel a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment
• 43% say companies should use social networks to solve customers’ problems
• 41% say companies should use social media to solicit feedback about products and services

Now, granted, this is an online survey, so the results may be a bit skewed. There is probably still a large population out there who have no idea what Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn even is (much less participate in online surveys). In fact, here’s a great post from Chris Brogan about keeping it real with real people (who aren’t geeks like us). But for those of your customers who are connected, you can’t afford to ignore the numbers uncovered by Cone in their study.

And, if you’re looking to start using social media in your marketing and PR efforts, HubSpot has a free webinar this week on How to Use Twitter for Marketing and PR. Here are the details:

Date: Friday, October 10, 2008

Time: 2PM EDT (GMT-4)

Duration: 1 Hour

Register here

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