Burson-Marsteller

European and global companies now focus on Social Media Interactivy – while Asian Companies’ Social Media Presence grows, Study Finds

News, Press releases • 15th February 2011

Contact: Daniel Jörg
Phone: +41(31) 356 7362
Email: daniel.joerg@BM.com
Twitter: @BMGlobalNews

New York, February 15, 2011 – Sixty-seven percent of Asian companies in the Fortune Global 100 are now using at least one social media platform, up from 50 percent 12 months earlier, while the number of European and U.S. companies using social media remained virtually flat at 89 (+1%) and 84 (-2%) percent respectively. This was a key finding of the Second Annual Burson-Marsteller Global Social Media Check-up, which examines the Fortune Global 100’s use of popular social networking platforms such as: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, corporate blogs and local and language-specific social networks.

“While the increase in social media adoption in Asia is in part due to greater investment in this area for local marketing, much of the growth is driven by Asian firms using social media to reach new audiences abroad,” said Burson-Marsteller Worldwide CEO Mark Penn. “In addition, global companies are now demonstrating greater comfort with the interactive nature of social networks and are more willing to engage their stakeholders directly on these platforms.”

The study also found that companies are directly engaging with and responding to other users on the various social platforms examined. For instance, 67 percent of Fortune Global 100 companies on Twitter are using the “@” mention function, and more than one-half (57 percent) are retweeting content from their corporate accounts. This represents a 76 percent increase in companies using the “@” mention function and 77 percent increase in retweeting over last year. The highest growth was among European companies, with a 148% increase using the “@” mention and thus taking a big step forward in their level of true engagement on Twitter.

On Facebook, 74 percent of companies allow users who “like” their page to post on their page “walls” and more than one-half (57 percent) of companies are responding to the posts and comments. The U.S. companies clearly lead the way on Facebook interaction before European companies with 89 percent of U.S. companies allowing posts and 72 percent of U.S. companies responding back. In Europe 59% of the covered companies allow users to post on the wall, and 51% of European companies respond to wall posts by “likers”.  

 To access the complete analysis of these findings click here for the full presentation. Other key findings include:

• Eighty-four percent of the companies in this year’s study are active on at least one social media platform considered, compared with 79 percent last year. With 89%, European companies are above average.
• Twenty-five percent of companies are using all four platforms studied, compared to 20 percent in the prior year’s study. With the lowest rate of 15% (Asia-Pacific: 33%, U.S. 34%), European companies seem to favor focusing on one or two channels, rather than to be active on all platforms.
• Globally, corporate participation in Twitter increased the most (to 77 percent in 2011 from 65 percent in 2010), followed by YouTube (57 percent in 2011 v. 50 percent in 2010), Facebook (61 percent in 2011 v. 54 percent in 2010), and corporate blogging (36 percent in 2011 v. 33 percent in 2010). 
• One-half (50 percent) of Asian companies now have Facebook pages compared to 40 percent last year. In addition, the average number of “likes” per Asian corporate Facebook page increased 406 percent from 23,971 “likes” to 121,257 “likes.” Eighty percent of the Fortune Global 100 were being talked about by Twitter account holders, almost twice as many as one year ago (42 percent). 
• On Facebook, each corporate page boasts an average of 87,979 “likes”, up from 40,884 “likes” in 2010.

• With 83%, Europe has the highest Twitter usage among Fortune 100 companies.
• The percentage of Asian companies with Twitter accounts grew 68 percent from 40 percent in 2010 to 67 percent in 2011. Seventy-seven percent of Asian companies with Twitter accounts are using the “@” mention function to open channels of communication with other users, and 62 percent of these Asian companies are re-tweeting content to followers.

About this Study
Data was collected between November 2010 and January 2011 based on Fortune Global 100 companies’ November 2010 social media activity on Twitter or other regional/local microblogging website, Facebook or other regional/local social networking website, YouTube or other regional/local video sharing website, and corporate blogging.  Sample size for countries/regions: U.S. = 32 companies, Europe = 47 companies, Asia-Pacific = 18 companies, Latin America = 3 companies.  Comparisons were made to Burson-Marsteller’s first Fortune Global 100 Social Media Study, The Global Social Media Check-up 2010, published on February 23, 2010.  Impact on results based on changes in the Fortune Global 100 list between 2009 and 2010 were deemed negligible.  Outliers in the data have been noted.  Data was collected by Burson-Marsteller’s global research team.

About Burson-Marsteller
Burson-Marsteller (www.burson-marsteller.com), established in 1953, is a leading global public relations and communications firm. It provides clients with strategic thinking and program execution across a full range of public relations, public affairs, advertising and web-related services. The firm’s seamless worldwide network consists of 67 offices and 71 affiliate offices, together operating in 98 countries across six continents.  Burson-Marsteller is a part of Young & Rubicam Brands, a subsidiary of WPP (NASDAQ: WPPGY), one of the world’s leading communications services networks.

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