CorpComms Magazine

Less than one quarter (23 per cent or 116) of America's Fortune 500 companies have a corporate blog, although those that have taken the decision to embrace this communication tool regularly update the service, according to a new survey by Forbes.

However, the number of corporate bloggers has risen from 81 (16 per cent) in 2008 and 108 in 2009.

Four of the country's top five companies, including retailing giant Wal-Mart and General Electric, have blogs. Exxon, parent company of Esso, Mobil and ExxonMobil, launched a blog in the wake of the BP oil spill. Nine out of ten corporate blogs allow comments, have RSS feeds and take subscriptions.

But the blogging culture is most popular with companies in the computer software or office equipment sectors, such as Dell and Hewlett Packard.

When it comes to social networking, however, the Fortune 500 companies are far more active. Six out of ten have a Twitter account and had tweeted in the 30 days before the survey was conducted. Indeed, 35 per cent of the Fortune tweeters (103 companies) interacted with followers with @replies or retweets within 72 hours. These Twitter accounts were kept up to date with current news and information.

Just over half (280) of the Fortune 500 are now on Facebook, with insurance companies the most likely to have a Facebook presence.

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet