Engagement: Thought's
more seductive cousin

54 percent of enterprises use Web 2.0 technologies, as do 74 percent of companies with fewer than 500 employees, according to a study Web 2.0 technology adoption and the future of social-media initiatives in enterprises, reports MarketingCharts.

Among the highlights of the study, "Trends in Adopting Web 2.0 for the Enterprise in 2007," released by Awareness (via FASTforward):

• Blogs are the most-used Web 2.0 technology (87 percent of respondents), followed by communities, wikis, RSS feeds and social networking.
• The most successful are blogs (44 percent of respondents), communities (42 percent) and wikis (39 percent).
• 96 percent say all Web 2.0 technologies they've used have been successful; 83 percent reporting no clear failures.
• The greatest obstacle to Web 2.0 deployment is limited internal resources.
• Some 64 percent of those using Web 2.0 technologies rely on a combination of internal- and external-facing media/tools.

Among the benefits of external-facing social media, according to the study:

• Increased customer engagement: 68 percent
• Increased brand awareness & loyalty: 64 percent
• Effective market research: 58 percent

Among the benefits of internal-facing social-media technologies, according to the study:

• Improved communication, collaboration: 91 percent
• Locating experts within the company: 81 percent
• Improving knowledge management: 78 percent

"The Awareness research found that … 28 percent of organizations with over 500 employees have budgets greater than $50,000 for web 2.0 tools or social media. The top tools planned are blogs and wikis (56 percent) but many are also planning to deploy online communities," writes FASTforward's Bill Ives.