I really don't know where this notion that companies "fear" social media comes from. To be sure, many companies are bureaucratic and most comfortable with the status quo, but my experience is that most business executives are quite open to anything that can help their businesses succeed.

This is the problem: there's very little quantitative evidence that companies are, on a large scale and in a consistent manner, using social media to make tangible, non-negligible impacts on their businesses.

How much quantitative evidence is there that "Companies will be surprised how fast they can grow their business by responsible social interaction that doesn't involve restrictions on their employees or spam to other internet users"?

I've yet to see more than the occassional anecdote and I certainly haven't seen any publicly-traded companies come out an announce that they've grown their businesses and/or reduced their marketing costs significantly through the use of social media.

I won't argue that there isn't some qualitative value in "conversing" with consumers and customers. There always has been and companies have been doing this in a variety of ways for decades.

That said, I think social media isn't being taken seriously by many business executives because it's being sold improperly. It would receive a warmer reception if people involved with it didn't make claims about how it can boost the bottom line before there's any evidence it can. Most executives aren't stupid – they understand when somebody is selling them on something that isn't realistic and can't be backed up.

The cost of a Facebook page, for instance, may be a drop in the bucket for a large brand, but when you look at most Facebook pages, they're like ghost towns. Even those that have more than a few thousand members typically have very limited activity, which makes sense. Users are not going to spend hours interacting on the Tide Facebook page, for instance. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to run the numbers and watch the activity levels to figure out that there's no way the page is going to do anything for the brand.

The bottom line is that if you try to sell me a Toyota Corolla and describe it as a sports car, I'm natually going to call BS. Either tell me you're selling a compact car or show me the Ferrari 430 Scuderia.