The results are in. Communicate and VMA Selection recently teamed up to feel the pulse of the communications industry and find out what the people at the bleeding edge really felt about social media. Neil Gibbons is your guide to the findings:

Marmite. You either love it or you hate it. And – judging by our survey of UK communications professionals
– the same seems to be true of social media in the workplace.

With the help of recruitment specialists VMA Selection, we talked to practitioners of corporate communications, investor relations, media relations and internal comms to gain an understanding of attitudes to, and use of, social media. What we found was that it polarises opinion. People seem to divide
between evangelical early adopters and grumpy cynics mumbling about the Emperor’s New Clothes– with very little in between.

At the heart of the findings then, was a chasm between hype and reality. The vast majority – 80% – told us that social media was an important comms tools. Similarly enthusiastic thoughts were to be found within the comments of some respondents, with social media being described as “critical”, and “soon-to-be-vital”. We were told that, “If you don’t communicate through it, you aren’t part of the discussion”.

Levels of skill and knowledge were similarly encouraging. Just over 75% told us that the extent of know-how was either good or average, with 14% describing it as excellent. Less than one in ten felt their social media abilities were poor.

And there appeared to be an appetite to understand more. We found that 79% of today’s comms professionals are keen to learn even more about how to use these tools. VMA’s Tim Ledeboer believes this is good news: “From a recruitment perspective, we are finding that clients want candidates to have a much more rounded approach to communications,” he says. “It is more important than ever that communications practitioners are able to blog, Twitter and write a press release.”

Yet as the questions delved into actual usage, the picture began to change. When asked if social media tools were being used mainly to communicate with internal or external audiences, over 30% said neither – they don’t use them at all.

Picking through the individual types of social media threw up a similarly mixed bag. We found 37% never blog; 51% never use Twitter or other micro-blogging tools; 34% never use social networking sites like LinkedIn; and 36% never monitor social media to find out what’s being said about their organisation.

We were told that “social media is just giving something that has always existed a label, as is the wont in PR”. Another respondent felt that “social media is a load of guff that comms officers think will make them ‘down with the kids’ but which nobody actually pays any attention to.”

Conversely however, when we looked at the other end of the spectrum, one in five described themselves as ‘frequent’ users. The Marmite factor rearing its head once again.

The research also unearthed some fascinating insights into how corporate use of social media is maturing, what the barriers are, and how social media comms campaigns should be formulated. “MySpace is a world away from Twitter which is different to Youtube,” said one respondent.” You hardly lump TV in with daily newspapers and refer to them as the same ‘old media’ with identical campaigns.” Similarly, there seemed to be an acceptance that when it comes to talking to external audiences, social media is best thought about as a tool for younger people: “Social media’s value shouldn’t be exaggerated. Beyond… the under 25s, it’s still a minority tool.”

Interestingly, others felt that one reason for slow adoption was management: “It’s quite hard to get buy-in from more senior members of staff who aren’t as au fait with social media as younger people”. Another felt that “Twittering is officially the most geeky thing you can do. If you try this at a corporate level, people will laugh at you”. Meanwhile other comments relating to funding: “We don’t have enough resources to re-do our website let alone invest time and money into social media projects”.

Another recurring theme was that social media, by giving companies a way to get really close to the views of consumers, and to try to influence that, was akin to playing with fire: “I’m not saying that public opinion isn’t important – it clearly is. But trying to get a hold of it and manage it is a dangerous game to play.”

This is a view endorsed by VMA’s Lebedoer who, while positive about social media, does see dangers: Reputations can be made or lost in an instant and, to add credibility to social media’s use as a professional communications tool, an effective evaluation process must be employed.”

If there was one key message that seemed to underpin the findings it is that social media is making genuine in-roads into the corporate world. Not only does it have a committed band of followers today, but those with reservations seem to be hinting that if hurdles like budget, executive buy-in and training can be overcome, they too might learn to love it. Now that’s one thing that Marmite will never be able to say.