Internally, video sharing was the most effective, with 48% of respondents seeing benefits. However, blogs were the most useful tool for external relationships, with 51% claiming to have benefited for customer-related purposes as well as for working with external partners and suppliers. Social networking also ranked high, with 48% seeing customer-related benefits and 49% reporting benefits related to external partners and suppliers. RSS, wikis, and podcasts ranked above 35% in all categories.
52% of respondents said Web 2.0 tools increased marketing effectiveness, 43% reported higher customer satisfaction and 38% said Web 2.0 reduced their marketing costs. The high-tech/telecom industry (unsurprisinly) reported customer-related benefits most frequently (65%). However, business/legal/professional services firms were not far behind, at 60%, revealing that the benefits of social media can and do extend beyond the tech industry.
