Surprisingly data from a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research study that shows while many of the Fortune 500 companies are using Facebook, Twitter and corporate blogs, that usage has not grown in the last 12 months.
The study found that 61% of Fortune 500 companies had an active Twitter account, with at least one new post in the past 30 days.
Looking at previous reports from the Center for Marketing Research, this percentage is up from 35% in 2009 but about the same as 2010, which was 60%. Additionally, there hasn’t been much change when it comes to public-facing corporate blogs, with 23% of Fortune 500 companies using a blog in both 2010 and 2011.
This apparent slowing down of social media adoption is interesting, as many of the Fortune 500 companies, such as Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Levi’s, are well-known for their social outreach. However, this may be the saturation point for social media among the largest US companies. By now, if a large company with a big budget wants to be active in social, it probably already is. And those that are not may be larger holding companies or B2B brands that do not have public-facing social media as part of their communications plan.
This plateauing is also interesting when comparing the Fortune 500 to the Inc. 500, which is a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the US. Social buzz and outreach can contribute a lot to a company’s growth, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see a socially savvy company show up on the Inc. 500.
In fact, the latest Center for Marketing Research study on Inc. 500 companies, looking at 2010, found that 86% of Inc. 500 companies think social media is very or somewhat important to their business and marketing strategy. Their focus on social is something Fortune 500 companies can learn from and, possibly, grow.
These companies are already established. Any news regarding them will spread virally on the news they really don’t require social media to hype about any thing.
Not surprised by this. Most corporations are still trying to figure out if/how social media impacts their online/offline efforts, and most importantly, the bottom line. My feel is that most executives are still skeptical and uncertain as to it’s impact to the bottom line.
Early adopters have primarily been those who were already actively engaged online. Will social media marketing drive additional revenues? At this time it’s hard to know because it’s been difficult to accurately measure the impact to the bottom line. If social media can be measured AND proven that it is producing positive bottom line results, I think you’ll see more corporations expand it’s usage.