Even your boss probably knows that adopting social media is the key to your company’s future survival.

Social enterprise company Jive has released a study showing that 78 percent of executives recognize that a social strategy is essential to future success.

“Today's executives realize that the new way to do business is here and that they must have a social strategy or risk falling behind,” Jive CEO Tony Zingale said in a press release.

The Jive study reveals even more statistics that prove that social business has penetrated the executive level. Here are some of the findings of the study:

• 66 percent of executives believe that social applications for business represent a fundamental shift in how work will get done and how companies will engage with customers;
• 53 percent of executives believe they must adopt social business or risk falling behind;
• 62 percent of executives cite the potential to achieve “better customer loyalty and service levels,” and 57 percent anticipate “increased revenue or sales” as a result of implementing a social business strategy;
• 62 percent of all respondents think that businesses need to use social software inside and outside their organizations to remain competitive;
• Online communities are an important source of information for making purchase decisions, especially for millennials. Fifty-four percent of millennials said they are more likely to rely on and make purchase decisions from information shared via personal contacts in online communities, while 33 percent are more likely to use information from “official” company sources; and
• 83 percent of executives use at least one social network in the workplace.

The Jive study was conducted by Penn Schoen Berland in May. It drew responses from more than 900 “knowledge workers.”