Feedback on our Fortune Global 100 Social Media Study

Article By: Digital Perspective Blog

We have received so many positive comments since we launched our Fortune Global 100 Social Media Study! I really appreciate those of you that took time to write and am enjoying hearing your questions and ideas. I thought it would be a good idea to answer some of the questions in an open forum. Here goes…

Q. What did you find most surprising?

A. Personally, I was surprised by the disparity across social media platforms. A full 79% are using one of the four platforms but only 20% of the companies included are using all four of the platforms considered in the study – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and corporate blogs. However, only 33% are using corporate blogs versus 65% that are using Twitter. The fact that Twitter has become the platform of choice didn’t surprise me, but the margin certainly did.

Q. How did the rest of the F500 do in the study?

A. Our study only considered the Fortune Global 100 so I can’t answer that.

Q. How did you pick the platforms to include?

A. Social media is a diverse ecosystem made up of all different sorts of community websites and consumer generated media. In some ways, picking the most popular social media platforms rails against our believe that quality trumps quantity in social media. However, we had to start somewhere. I believe it is safe to assume that companies will start with the broadest platforms – those included in our study – before moving on to more niche communities.

Q. Why did you call it social media? Isn’t that term outdated?

A. Well, there are a lot of terms floating around. Some people call it “new media” but I’ve been doing this for more than 15 years now so it is clearly not new. Others call it “emerging media” but I’d argue that it has emerged. If anything it could be considered “evolving media” but as a very smart person told me today, all media is evolving. The reality is that I don’t believe it is the agency’s job to define or name the channel – we should follow our clients’ lead. The industry and clients at large still talk about and ask for social media strategy and tactics – and therefore I’ll continue to use language that they are comfortable with.

Q. How did you handle multiple accounts?

A. The study showed that those that are active in social media have multiple accounts. For example, those who are active on Twitter average 4.2 accounts, although their are outliers with many more. If a company was present and active they were included. We didn’t weight companies based on the number of accounts.

Q. Is there really a dialogue taking place or are companies only pushing their information?

A. We were pleasantly surprised by the fact that there is truly a dialogue taking place. Companies have a significant number of followers or fans and are responding to consumer comments. They are also actively following people who follow them, paving the way for a relationship to develop.

Q. Why does this study matter?

A. This study is important because companies are still grappling with many issues around participating in social media. They are trying to determine which internal department owns it (we’d argue it is a shared responsibility), how to create guidelines, which sites to participate in, and what type of content to share (we’d recommend content that contributes to communities of interest). A study of this magnitude that shows companies how peers are participating is valuable in helping to convenience skeptical executives to consider the possibilities. And plus it was fun to do.

And, my favorite question…

Q. When did you have time to do the research?

I didn’t. Ashley Welde of our Evidence-Based team and Paul Cordasco led the research effort with contributions from colleagues all around the world. Ashley and Paul are quite the dynamic duo and are passionate about evidence-based communications and social media – a perfect combination as far as I’m concerned. Great job guys.

Lastly, some of the best questions I received came from Phil Dobbie of BNET. We recorded a podcast last week that he published today. Enjoy, and thanks.