Barriers to Corporate Use of Social Media - A debunking by tweetpr

While scanning through Twitter, I found a very interesting article by tweetpr on "Debunking the Social Media Barriers."  It focused on the 44% of companies who stated they would probably or definitely not use social media in a recent CEO Survey by PRWeek.  PRWeek followed up by asking them what they considered to be the most serious barriers holding them back.

Here they are:

• 44.5% said they consider it lack of relevance to target stakeholder groups.
• 37% said they are concerned about losing control of the message.  
• 28% said they were concerned about return on investment (ROI)  
• 22.5% said they were concerned about lack of knowledge and capability within the company.
• 19% said they were concerned about the lack of knowledge and capability within the public relations, advertising, and/or other marketing agencies the company works with.  

David does a great job in debunking these barriers.  I especially liked his discussion on controlling the message.  Consumers gained their own megaphone with the advent of Web 2.0 and consumer generated content.  Companies no longer control the message; it is a shared conversation with all of us.

So...what reasons does your company, organization, or group use social media to join the conversation?