When I meet people and tell them what I do, I often hear comments like, “Isn’t everyone moving to the Web,” or “I thought printed statements were being phased out.” Here’s what I believe is happening in the UK market, and what this means for document professionals.

There is growth in the use of the Internet for transaction documents, based on research by InfoTrends, for one. But many people, including me, bank online AND receive printed statements. What’s more, even in UK – one of the world’s wealthiest countries – some 11M people don’t have access to the Internet. So can the Internet ever meet the needs of everyone?

A social business report , The Global Social Media Check Up, has been issued by Burson-Marsteller that gives some useful information into the ways in which Fortune 100 companies are using social media platforms for business.

The Global Social Media Check Up determined the following results

• 65% have active accounts on Twitter
• 54% have a Facebook fan page
• 50% have a YouTube channel
• 33% have a corporate blog

However with 84% serving tweets weekly but only 38% responding to tweets, it seems some may have a little to learn about the social side of social business!

Burson-Martseller have also put together a slide show to help us understand the study in more depth.

At UC Expo (Unified Communications Expo), I was kindly offered the opportunity to present by the exhibition organisers. My presentation entitled Social Business in 2010 was the last session of the first day in the Messaging & Collaboration theatre.

In terms of the presentation, the focus was really taking a look at my own prediction about how networks that offer social functionality that links specific markets together will rise.



The first part of the presentation centres on a couple of items of recent research that demonstrate a shift towards social media from a marketing perspective, showing near doubling of budget allocation to B2B social media marketing.