The University of Massachusetts released its annual survey of social media usage at Fortune 500 companies and the trend continued to heat up, although these mega-companies continue to lag INC 500 companies, non-profits and universities in their application of social media to marketing efforts.

In the past year, these business giants have increased their adoption of blogging by 5%, their use of Twitter for corporate communications by 11% and their use of Facebook pages by 8%.

The 139 corporations with blogs come from 54 of the 71 industries represented in the F500. The industries that blog the most are Telecommunications, Banking, Specialty Retail, and Utilities. The 17 industries with no companies blogging include Forest and Paper Products, Railroads, Tobacco, Toys/Sporting Goods, Real Estate, Building Materials/Glass, Trucking and Waste Management.

66% of the F500 are now on Facebook, an 8% increase since last year. Eight of the top 10 companies (Exxon and Berkshire Hathaway do not).

The use of Twitter surged by 11% in 2012.  73% of the F500 have active corporate Twitter accounts with a tweet in the past thirty days.

Last year, 31% of the F500 had neither a Twitter account nor a Facebook presence. This year that number has dropped to 23%.

For the first time, the university looked at YouTube and Pinterest.  62% of the F500 had YouTube accounts and 11 companies {2%) had Pinterest accounts. Companies with Pinterest accounts: General Electric, Lowe’s, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Whole Foods, Bed Bath & Beyond, Dollar Tree, Dillard’s, American Family Insurance Group, Eastman Kodak, and Live Nation.

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While we’re on the topic of data, I wanted to remind you that time is running out to purchase the discounted package of the new research from The Social Habit.  This affordable, cutting edge research will uncover topics such as …

• How Facebook, Twitter and other social networks impact buying decisions
• Customer Service expectations and preferred channels in social media
• How social media affects other media consumption
• What people pin on Pinterest–and why
• What kinds of content people expect from brands and companies
• Social media behaviors and expectations associated with food brands, restaurants, financial services companies and more

Friday September 7 will be the end of early bird pricing … it’s $297 until then, then it goes up to $347.

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