Social Media Double Standards?

Great Britain says no to social media being taught in schools, but yes to adoption in business

London, UK - 2009-06-09 - 71% of GB workers feel that teaching social media technologies such as Twitter and blogging in schools is inappropriate, according to a survey of almost 2000 GB adults conducted by YouGov on behalf of Open Text. However, social media in business is flourishing with almost a third of the respondents saying they use some form of social media tool in the workplace. When it comes to social media in business, just 15% of respondents who used the technology saw it as a negative influence almost a third thought that it was a good thing, 56% were neutral, thinking it is neither a good nor a bad thing with the remaining 1% undecided.

Craig Hepburn, Director of Social Strategy for Open Text, said: The survey results reflect the change in culture we have been seeing for the past two to three years. People have started to rely on Facebook, Twitter YouTube and MySpace as social communication tools and they now want access to this form of communication in their work environment for business use too. This growing demand for social media and other Web 2.0 technologies is a direct reflection of how people have changed the way they communicate.

However, what is clear from these findings is that while people are happy to use social media applications in the working environment, they are unhappy about them being taught in school. These tools however could well be the future of business, you only have to look at the growth of business social media site LinkedIn - which now has over 40 million members* - to see the importance of these applications and the fact they will play a big part in future generations personal and professional lives.

While some might have seen social media in the past as a disruption in the workplace, 20% of the survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed that a corporate Facebook would be better than their existing platform for sharing information and collaborating on projects at work with customers, colleagues and partners. Furthermore 6% have admitted that they d go as far as not taking a job if social media tools were not made available to them.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of respondents who saw positives in social media in the workplace were in the age groups 18-24 and 25-34 or to put it another way, Generation Y. A similar pattern occurred in the question regarding Twitter in schools with the 25-34 year olds showing the most positive support for it. This reflects that they are seeing the positive impact on business and feel the need for these to be highlighted to the younger generation. What this shows is that UK businesses need to start adapting their processes and solutions to better suit the Facebook generation and future UK workforce. With more than 1 billion pieces of content including photos, web links and news stories being shared each week on Facebook**, organisations need to understand that the future of content creation and sharing is going to be very different. What was initially seen as a pass time for teenagers to share pictures and content is fast becoming the key to real time communication, whether it is business or social.

We are seeing a new world of connected people and content where developing the social workplace and social marketplace will be key to success. What this represents is a fundamental change in the way we communicate, interact and learn, and organisations need to be marching to the social media beat, Craig Hepburn of Open Text concluded.

Other stats that might be of interest

50% of the UK workforce are banned from using social media in the workplace

Employees in Scotland and Wales were banned the most from using social media at work

Employees in London were allowed to use social media at work the most

Londoners were the most likely not to take a job if social networking wasn t available and the Welsh were the least

* http://www.linkedin.com/

** http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

About Open Text

Open Text, an enterprise software company and leader in enterprise content management, helps organizations manage and gain the true value of their business content. Open Text brings two decades of expertise supporting 50 million users in 114 countries. Working with our customers and partners, we bring together leading Content Experts(TM) to help organizations capture and preserve corporate memory, increase brand equity, automate processes, mitigate risk, manage compliance and improve competitiveness. For more information, visit http://www.opentext.com.

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1983 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 31st March - 2nd April 2009. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).

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For more information, please contact

Rob Jessel / Rob Forbes
Spreckley Partners Ltd
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