Big Fish, Small Fish: Who will rule the pond in the UK?

A recent survey of office workers in the UK suggests they cost the country’s economy roughly £1.38 billion each year because they spend time on the clock surfing social media networking sites such as Twitter. A consultant for the company that commissioned the report said, “When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole.”

Sound familiar? Maybe reminiscent of the fears people had about email in the work place in 1994? It also sounds eerily like the concern that Internet access in the workplace gave rise to Cyberslacking in 1996. These days, it’s hard to imagine a day at the office without either email or Internet. Yet the fear of new communication technology in the Enterprise has surfaced again in the UK around Twitter. But why?

It certainly is not because of a lack of broadband Internet access. Data published at Internet World Stats shows that a high percentage of both US and UK citizens enjoy Internet connectivity (74.1% and 79.8%, respectively). So, with broadband Internet and tasty low-cost social media marketing dangling within reach, why aren’t UK businesses hungry for the bait?

One contributing factor could be that European businesses are slower to utilize social media applications such as Twitter to promote their companies than US businesses. According to Forrester Research’s Consumer Profile Tool, 82% of US citizens use social networks, compared to 63% of their UK brothers and sisters across the pond. US participants are more actively participating on social networks at every rung in Forrester’s ladder of participation.

Maybe less experience contributed to why a study conducted by Webtrends found that the rate of adopting low-cost social media marketing strategies, specifically Twitter, by Enterprise businesses in the UK was only 2%. These companies know about Twitter, but they might not know what to make of it.  “Many are simply not sure how to use it, and even if they could they wouldn’t be sure of what to say, and who exactly they would be saying it to,” said Webtrends’ marketing director Colette Wade.

The same cannot be said for the small fish competing with the big fish Enterprises. O2 recently did a study that found 17% of small businesses were utilizing Twitter. As bizreport.com put it “Cost-cutting was cited as the biggest benefit of tweeting by two-thirds of those surveyed, with 16% claiming they had saved up to £5,000 (US$7,300) since signing up.”

The 15% gap between Enterprise businesses and small businesses in the UK in their adoption of Twitter to market their companies is substantial! Enterprise “big fish” companies who are slow to see the benefits of social media might find themselves “Amazoned” when their “small fish” competition out-positions them in the marketplace by embracing social media marketing before they do.

It may be the same old pond, but the ecosystem is different. Will the small fish dominate the UK food chain with new media marketing strategies?