Familiar is a funny word. The dictionary defines it as one who is well acquainted with something b: one who frequents a place or use of a thing.
If asked are you familiar with blogging? one might answer "why yes of course". On the other hand if one asked "Do you understand the dynamics of blogging and all this social stuff?" The same person who answer "why yes of cours"Â to the previous questions might answer the second question with "No but I am familiar with it."Â
There is a big difference between being familiar and understanding why and how something works.
Is Business Familiar with all This Social Stuff?
In a report titled: Social Media And US Business Familiarity, Usage And Adoption: A Research Study Of The Inc. 500 the data shows businesses are indeed moving toward use of all this â€Å"social stuffâ€Â
The report states: Social media is coming to the US business world and sooner than many had originally anticipated.â€Â
Given that previous research
now shows that just 11.6% of the Fortune 500 currently having a public
blog, it is astounding to see that 39% of the Inc. 500 is blogging.
The addition of 3.6% more Fortune 500 companies to the blogosphere
pales in comparison to the addition of 20% more of the Inc. 500
companies after the same time period.â€Â
The social media that was most familiar to the Inc. 500 in both studies is social networking with 42% of respondents claiming to be "very familiar with it" in 2007 and 57% in 2008. However, as the graph below shows, across the board a significant percentage of the companies are "very familiar" with each of these technologies.â€Â
In the 2007 study wikis were the least familiar to the Inc. 500, but in 2008 wikis jumped ahead of podcasting in familiarity.â€Â
The social media that continues
to be the most familiar to the Inc. 500 is social networking with 57%
of respondents in 2008 claiming to be "very familiar with it"
(compared to 42% in 2007). Familiarity is related to usage. It is
interesting to note, however, that even those forms of social media
less familiar to the participants are still used by at least 20% of
them.â€Â
Do They Understand Why and How it Works?
The answers are only as good as the questions asked. We'll let you answer the question. What say you?