CorpComms Magazine

New academic research suggests Fortune 500 companies are no longer increasing their presence on social media at such a rapid rate.

Nearly two thirds of Fortune 500 companies have corporate Twitter accounts in 2011, which is equivalent to an increase of just two per cent on the 2010 figures. Facebook adoption has been similarly slow in terms of growth with only a two per cent increase on the 2010 figures.

The research, which was conducted by academics at the University of Massachusetts, has been tracking social media adoption at 500 of America's companies since 2008.

This year there are 114 companies with blogs compared to 116 last year, representing a levelling off since 2010, say the academics. The academics also found that nearly one quarter of the Fortune 500 had a public-facing corporate blog, these include two of the largest five corporations (Wal-Mart and Exxon).

Dr Nora Ganim Barnes, a senior fellow at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth said: 'These results may signal a levelling off and possibly retrenchment when it comes to the adoption of social media among the 2011 Fortune 500. There is also evidence of change in the adoption of these tools by industry and a clear sign from some companies that these are not part of their communications strategy.

'Given that the Fortune 500 are the titans of American business, we may be seeing the slowdown in business adoption of social media. At the very least, this group appears to have slowed or stopped its adoption of the three most prominent tools - Blogging, Facebook and Twitter,' she added.

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