Who’s Out There? CFOs can’t ignore social media. But what’s the ROI?

The power of social media — or, at least, its potential power — is not lost on American companies. Many are using it successfully for everything from new-product marketing to employee collaboration to innovative and very effective forms of customer service. But, most companies are struggling to turn nascent, ad hoc efforts into something resembling an actual strategy.

Clearly, social media engages enormous numbers of people: how else to explain how Starbucks got 8,006,349 Facebook “likes” (as of early December 2011) for its Frappuccino. More broadly, the numbers on social media adoption are spectacular. As of December, Facebook claimed 800 million active users worldwide, with 50% logging on every day. Twitter reported an average of 460,000 accounts created per day late last fall, with an average of 1 billion tweets per week. As of November 3, 2011, LinkedIn had 135 million members in more than 200 countries; two new users join every second.

That action is not just limited to consumers. A survey of 4,261 global executives conducted by McKinsey late last year found 72% reporting that their companies deployed at least one social technology. A November 2011 Towers Watson study of 604 global organizations found 69% planning to increase their use of social media tools over the next 12 months.

Read the full online article “Who’s Out There?” at CFO.com. For additional insight, refer to the CICA Practical Guidance Series, especially Using the Internet in Corporate Reporting: Practical Guidance for Managing Web 2.0 and Social Media. Also, see the four-part series on Using the Internet in Corporate Reporting (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4).