Blogging has been an excellent way for companies of all types and sizes to interact with their customers, and get some great SEO benefits. According to a recent study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, however, it appears that companies that make up the Fortune 500 are beginning to focus their efforts else ware.
The study found that so far in 2014, only 31% of the companies on this list have a public facing corporate blog. That is down from 34% in 2013. This also marks the first time since the study was performed that the percent of company’s blogging has gone down. In 2008, only 16% of Fortune 500 companies had this type of blog.
Looking closer at the list, only two of the top five companies actually have a blog and it might surprise you which ones do and which ones don’t. Wal-mart and Exxon Mobile both have active blogs. On the other hand, Berkshire Hathaway, Chevron and Apple do not. It seems that Apple would be interested in having a great blog given the fact that their target audience would likely see it as extremely valuable.
Another interesting statistic from the study is that of the companies that do have a public facing blog, nearly 80% of them are kept active. This means that most of the companies that are actually blogging are doing it well.
In addition to blogging, the studies looked at how these companies used social media platforms. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of them use social media in one way or another. 97%, for example, have a presence on LinkedIn. 83% use Twitter (up from 77% in 2013). Facebook is the third most popular with 80% having a Facebook page (up from 70% in 2013).
There are a number of other interesting statistics concerning how Fortune 500 companies are using blogging and social media to build their brands on the survey page, found HERE. This is something all marketers can definitely benefit from as these huge companies have undoubtedly spent a significant amount of time and money to figure out what is working best for them.
