A new international survey, conducted by BizInfo and Blackline, the social media agency of Leads United, found that apart form increasing productivity, 65,3% business professionals say that web 2.0 services allow them to achieve business objectives and 78,1% believe they help increase collaboration among employees.

The survey was directed at business professionals to clearly understand in how far these employees were using web 2.0 technologies such as social networks, blogs, RSS and wikis for professional purposes.

The results are as follows:

• To the 557 respondents of our survey, "Social Networking" appears to be the most used Web2.0 service (95.3%), followed by Blogs (51.2%), RSS (49.9%) and Wikis (47.2%).
• Online social networks are used daily for professional purposes by 32,5% of the respondents and at least once a week for 80.1%.
• The top 3 social networking sites used for professional purposes are LinkedIn (94%), Facebook (46.3%) and Plaxo (41.2%).
• Most of the participants have been using social networks since 1 or 2 years (37%), which matches the huge growth of LinkedIn from 2007 to 2008 (+485%) and the launch of the Facebook Platform (which allows for creating third party applications on Facebook) in the beginning of 2007.
• The most important reasons to use online social networks for professional purposes appears to be business networking, corresponding to the use of LinkedIn (47.5%); and to stay in touch with (ex)colleagues (37.3%). However finding sales leads or having fun with colleagues are at the end of the list when looking at "activities" on social networks.
• Most of the respondents agree that Web 2.0 tools help them to achieve professional objectives (65.3%), can increase workforce productivity (64.7%) and collaboration (78.1%).
• They also consider that these tools can help to increase the return to investment of professional development/training (66.2%), capture and transfer knowledge (81.1%).
• 53,7% of the respondents to the survey disagree with the idea that Web2.0 tools distract professionals from their jobs and lower productivity, and 71% don't consider "Web2.0" to be a hype.
• Most of the professionals surveyed (82.2%) are not paying to use a social network or a Web2.0 tool because most are actually free. 62.3% would not consider paying for these online services in the future.
• Furthermore, the majority of companies the respondents represent do not have a "paid" service (65.4%).

About the survey:

The survey is based on 557 responses of targeted business professionals and has been conducted between 18/08/08 and 01/11/08. The average profile of the respondent is male (67,1%), between 24 and 46 years old (87,6%) and holding a masters degree (62,3%). 80,6% of the respondents are located in Europe and hold a management function (42,4%) in Human Resources (27,6%) or Marketing (15,3%).

About Blackline

Blackline is a social media agency with a serious public relations background & with a focus on public, private and non-profit-making organizations who wish to engage with their online audiences. The agency advises on the use of social media such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, videocasts and social networks in the context of external, internal and crisis communications. The agency offers consulting, hands on training & project management.

About BizInfo

BizInfo is a 'knowledge provider & communities creator for professionals' based in Belgium (Ghent).

Presscontacts:

Philippe Borremans
Managing Director, Blackline
Mob: +32497451133
Tel: + 3238719330
Skype: philborremans
http://www.blacklineblog.com

BizInfo
Marc Ernst
T: + 32 9 324 86 59
Mobile: + 32 497 21 85 06
http://www.biz-info.eu