Data: What the Fortune Global 100 are doing (and not doing) on social media
A recent study from Burson-Marsteller looks in depth at what the Fortune Global 100 are currently doing on social media.
Some of the interesting insights from the study include:
* There is a massive amount of communication about major companies, with each company mentioned in an average of over 55,000 tweets and 19,000 blog posts each month
* Corporate participation in social media is high though not yet pervasive, with 82% of the companies on Twitter (compared to 65% in 2010), 74% on Facebook (up from 54%), and 79% on YouTube (up from 50%)
* The average Fortune 100 company has almost 15,000 followers on their Twitter account, almost 3x a year earlier, and over 150,000 likes on Facebook
* There has been a rapid shift to multiple social media accounts, with the average company having over 10 Twitter accounts and 10 Facebook pages, across segments, geographies, and purposes
* 25% of the companies have Pinterest accounts, showing they are on top of trends
Overall, the data points to a high and increasing level of engagement with social media by large corporations. However by 2012 it is still rather surprising that there are still major companies that are not yet engaged on social media. Undoubtedly under the headline data there are many companies that are engaging on social media, but with little depth or enthusiasm.
How well companies engage in social media is likely to be an increasingly accurate indicator of their ability to deal with accelerating change in the business environment.
