As many of you may know, World Social Media Day takes place on June 30th. For many businesses every day is a social media day and a recent survey by Cork-based social media agency Media Manager suggests most Irish SMEs use social media for business and customer relationship building.

Media Manager surveyed over 140 business managers in Ireland. The key findings are below. The most significant finding is that 76% of respondents said that their sales had been increased through the use of social media.

KEY FINDINGS
o 96% of those surveyed used social media for business.
o Facebook was the most popular social media tool with 89% of respondents using it for their businesses. The second most popular tool was Twitter, with 82% using it for business. 66% used professional networking site Linked In, 25% used Pinterest and 14% used another social media platform.
o 76% used social media personally and 24% did not use social media outside of work.
o 76% of respondents said that their sales had been increased through the use of social media.
o 57.7% actively used social media to generate sales.
o 53.6% used social media to improve customer service.
o Only 38.8% of those surveyed had a company social media policy yet 93.9% thought that social media guidelines were important.
o 46.4% had received formal training on using social media for their businesses.
o 66% of those using social media for business had regretted a post/tweet sent out.