Update, Monday Jan 28: I’m holding off on publishing the web strategy survey (details here) for a few days, I may get my hands on some better tools/process, so please hang tight.
A few days ago, I asked if it would be appropriate to run a survey on this blog, the overall answer was “yes”.
This survey should help both readers to understand their peers, as well as for me to understand the readers.
This Monday, I’m going to publish the first ever survey for this blog. The goals? To learn about readers, (who they are, what they do, what their challenges are) and will publish the findings for all readers to learn from. Secondly, I want to learn about what you think about the web strategy blog, what works, and what can be improved.
While not all feedback will be incorporated (it’s not physically possible) I’ll take considerations into mind. While this blog is serving the web decision maker, it’s still mine, and I’ll maintain editorial control. I can’t be all things to all people, so ultimately, I’ll be the final judge.
I won’t be using this data in any malicious way, and respondents can stay anonymous. Of course, if there is a business opportunity, and someone needs help from my employer, I will pass on any messages, but of course this will be voluntary and completely opt-in. If I didn’t you could leave comments and my reputation would quickly be tarnished, the control is in your hands.
Here’s my proposed survey questions what do you think?
1 About you
-Title
-Kind of work/industry
-Experience
-Do you use social media?
-Budget
-Size of team under you
-Open ended section2 About your challenges
-Is your organization ready for social media?
-Where are you as far as implementation?
-How many months/years has your company been implementing social media?
-What type of tools have you deployed?
-How would you describe the reaction of your company to this change?
-What are your biggest challenges (open)3 About the web strategy blog
-How did you find this blog?
-How do you consume the content on this blog
-How do you rate the blog/share with others?
-How do you rate the amount of content being published (frequency)
-What’s woroking well
-What needs to be improved
-Open ended section4 Contact info (optional)
-Name
-Company
-Option to receive follow-up email
I’m being very open-source in this survey process, as I want to make sure readers get as much out of it as I do, your feedback encouraged.
Jeremiah,
great idea. Looks like your survey will capture data on two main areas:
1. Your web strategy blog (question 3)
2. The adoption of Web 2.0 in the enterprise (question 2).
On the latter topic, we recently sponsored a third part to do a survey on “trends in adopting Web 2.0 in the enterprise.” We just published the results in a white paper. Some of the highlights were:
The greatest inhibitor to adoption – identified by nearly 90 percent of the participants – is concern about security, moderation and control, especially among those from organizations with more than 5,000 employees and those in the marketing/advertising, creative design and public relations departments.
The second greatest barrier identified by the report is a lack of internal resources to devote to social media initiatives.
The report also found that:
¢ More than half of enterprise-size organizations utilize Web 2.0 technologies (54 percent), as do 74 percent of companies with less than 500 employees;
¢ The majority of respondents using Web 2.0 technologies employ a combination of internal- and external-facing tools (64 percent);
¢ Blogs are the most used Web 2.0 technology (selected by 87 percent of respondents), followed by communities, wikis, RSS feeds and social networking;
¢ The most successful uses of Web 2.0 technologies in their organizations are blogs (44 percent), communities (42 percent) and wikis (39 percent); and,
¢ Limited internal resources to deploy the technology is the second-biggest obstacle in adopting Web 2.0 technologies.
The entire whitepaper is available at http://www.awarenessnetworks.com/resources/
Great questions. I would also add the question “Do you want to use Social Media?” I work mostly with Governments in Canada and most do not use Social Media, but would like to.
My two cents worth.
One question I think is important to include is “What are your expectations when implementing Social Media tools?” Too often I see lots of folks believing they will become the next Facebook — and when that happens, two years down the road they are disappointed. Facebook is the anomaly not the goal.
I’m so glad you’re doing this survey and overall think it looks good.
In the About You section: “Do you use social media” I assume this could mean your company, not just you personally. If so, maybe the question should be you/your company. I’d also be interested in a question along the lines of whether or not there’s an overall manager/evangelist who’s accountable for social media in your company.
Very much looking forward to this, JKO. One awkward question is “size of team under you.” When I first started reading this blog, I was at a 120 person company with nobody “under me”. Now I’m at a 7-person startup with nobody under me. Very different situations that you might want to capture. So maybe “size of team” and “role on team”?
JO – brilliant idea yet again… here’s some thoughts (you may have covered in notes etc):, anyway
Corporate angle:
size and type of company (sector/industry)
social media messages (what is your company saying or who are you trying to attract and why, etc)
social media mechanisms (tools etc – but also what do you use to access eg via regular browser, flock, etc etc)
Hey Jeremiah,
Long time reader, first time commenter. Do you need access to a survey tool to pull this off? I have a tool that I could lend you for this exercise. Let me know if you need the help.
– Aaron
Great responses and ideas here. I’ll be incorporating many.
I’m also going to ask some technographics questions about you all to find out WHICH social technologies you use, and how you use them.
Adam, I saw your comment, will alter thanks.
Aaron, thanks for the offer, I’m going to use surveymonkey, which I’ve been using for years and am very comfortable with.
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1 About you
-Title
-Kind of work/industry
-Experience
-Do you use social media?
-Budget
-Size of team you’re in
-Technographics questions (5 questions)
-Open ended section
2 About your challenges
-I will preface this to find out about the company that respondents work for (size and industry)
-Is your company a vendor, consultant, or corporation (client side)
-Is your organization ready for social media?
-Where are you as far as implementation? (this will add to the “Will you use social media in the future” question.
-How many months/years has your company been implementing social media?
-What type of tools have you deployed?
-How would you describe the reaction of your company to this change?
-What are your biggest challenges (open)
3 About the web strategy blog
-How did you find this blog?
-How do you consume the content on this blog
-How do you rate the blog/share with others?
-How do you rate the amount of content being published (frequency)
-What™s woroking well
-What needs to be improved
-Open ended section
4 Contact info (optional)
-Name
-Email
-Company
-Option to receive follow-up email
Jeremiah,
I would also suggest asking people if social media resides in any particular areas of the company. The battle for “alleged ownership” in corporate America is well underway. Obviously, any thoughts on measurement and ROI would also be enlightening too. Thanks for the insights.
Good one Mike, thanks.
Looking forward to this, Jeremiah!
Jeremiah, here’s two more questions that I think will be relevant
Personal
1. what social media and networks do you mostly use (personal use)
This blog
2. would you like to contribute to case studies on this blog
Jeremiah, The survey is a great idea. You might add: “What is the strategic goal of a social networking project in your organization?”
Great idea. Looking forward for that.
In the 1st part “about you”, you might also consider asking some info on the country of the answerers: this might be useful to check if things are going differently in different parts of the world.
Bernard, that’s a good point, thanks.