On Smartcompany.com.au’s “Lunch With an Entrepreneur” series, Amanda Gome interviewed Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence’s Rohit Bhargava. Rohit talked about social networking, big mistakes businesses have made and his observations from his recent trip to Australia.  You can listen to his podcast on Smartcompany.com.au or read the transcript below.

Where is Australia at on the social media curve?

Australia is similar to a lot of countries: brands are very, very interested in starting to engage and experiment with social media. They want to find ways of proving the value of that to the people within their organisation.

What’s the biggest hurdle they’re having to overcome? Is it a waste of time or resources?

There’s a lot of fear around the amount of resource time, so when you think in terms of return on investment, the investment in social media is very often the time, not so much the budget. So that’s a very real cost. But the other thing is there is the fear of negativity that perhaps people might be negative about your brand or your product. So that can be a barrier sometimes.

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