I read two things today that affected me and are figuring in to my predictions for 2009 (but I haven’t published the Web Analytics / Social Media predictions yet) – first, a post on Online Presence Affects Company Valueby Sally Falkow over at Social Media Today that might be used as a back door to justifying Social Media in corporations, especially in 2009:

“…one key finding is that more  than half (59 percent)  of Americans believe they can judge a company’s values by its online presence (versus 45 percent in the U.K.)”

If ~60% of Americans think they can judge what a company is all about by looking at it’s online presense – why aren’t they investing more into enhancing their online presence?    I don’t think the answer has hit, yet.   I bet it will, more and more, in 2009.

To me, part of “online presence” is finding out what people are saying about your Brand and answering - within 24 hours if possible – having a dialog with anyone and everyone; that series of conversations, unfortunately, isn’t happening enough.  That’s the 60% – that’s what can be influenced … but it’s time consuming – still, it’s worth it – because, as mentioned in BrandWeek – the study by MS&L, conducted in partnership with GfK Roper, examined some of the corporate values consumers today find most important and the effects of such perceptions on maintaining long-term business.

But, while collecting the “Buzz” to respond to (you can get it for free by using a Freenimum account in SM2 Techrigy the time to respond and build brand is not inconsquential.  Even more, and I get into this in my iMediaConnection draft – which was just sent out today – on Getting Started with Web Analytics and Social Media – I found there are, at least, 2 problems – right off the bat, and probably a few more I haven’t thought of or mentioned:

As a result – building realistic online presence might need some kind of restructuring from Corporate, to happen, at all.

The second thing I read today, at Micro Persuasion was Living without Email – One Man’s Story. Are you Next? where Steve Rubel noted about Luis Suarez from IBM.:

“….By pushing more of his communication into social networks and wikis – both internal and external and relying more on IM. Luis is an inspiration. So do you think this is part of a broader trend? Is your email down this year? I think mine is down slightly and I am wondering if we’re all starting to live like Luis and what the broader ramifications might be for internal communications.”

Let’s personalize here – while my business email has not declined, at all, my personal email HAS,  quite a lot.   I don’t think many businesses get it yet – but there’s many cases now where asyncronous, real time information is happening via Twitter or Facebook where it could have happened before using email or phone.

Consider then, that much of the “online repuration” and “Brand Values” you need to monitor, start dialogs about, maintain – is happening online, and not in email -but where others can see it (Twitter/Friendfeed/Facebook) and it’s clear that as time goes on, companies need to engage more actively, transparently and in real time – online – where they haven’t, for a large part, wanted to go.

Sometimes, I’m sad just seeing how many missed opportunities are passed up – where someone was reaching out the the Brand for help – and there was no one there to listen, no one that even has a concept to what that means – and we’re not talking about small companies (that are actually more likely to use Social Media) – I’m talking about large, multinational brands.