Many Fortune 500 Companies Avoid Social Media

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Consumers expect to see Facebook buttons and links to Fan pages or Twitter handles in email marketing messages, but many Fortune 500 companies avoid social media, according to a study released Friday. The decision diminishes search engine marketing by prohibiting the indexing and connecting of company sites to other Web content, iincluding directories like Google Local.

Analysis of Fortune 500 Web sites and email by Genesys, which focuses on improving customer experiences, found that many consumer-facing Fortune 500 companies don't want to list social media as a means for customers to contact them. 

While 51% of Fortune 500 businesses do not provide a link to their Facebook profile on the Contact Us page of their Web site, 55% don't provide a Twitter handle. About 27% of consumer-facing Fortune 500 corporations do not list social media channels on their Web site home page, 89% do not list an e-mail address on their site, and 13% don't list a phone number on their Contact Us page.

Social media can effectively drive both online and in-store purchases, but many Fortune 500 companies are luxury brands that only allow potential and existing customers to contact them via traditional means.

Research from Martini Media explores how affluent consumers continue to spend an increasing amount of time on digital platforms, concluding it’s more difficult to reach them through traditional media.

Agencies estimate their luxury clients spend 10% of their digital budgets on social, whereas brand marketers estimate 22% of their digital budgets are spent on social. Much of that outlay is wasted if Fan pages and Twitter handles are not accessible to consumers. Both agree TV dollars will shift to online video for luxury marketers.

In the near future, agencies project the fastest increase in spending will reside in video, mobile and social media, 69%, 68% and 48%, respectively.

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4 comments on "Many Fortune 500 Companies Avoid Social Media".

1. Henry Blaufox from Dragonsearch Marketing
   

   commented on: August 27, 2012 at 11:21 a.m.
   That over half of Fortune 500 companies don't include social media connections on their site contact pages could indicate that they still don't have a formal process to receive, process, record and monitor such contacts as part of the customer service and CMS functions. Perhaps many firms still consider these unstructured conversations as being outside the realm of standard public communications. At DragonSearch, we advise such clients that they are missing an opportunity to further build the brands, and solidify their image. A study of social use and response by major companies was reported at http://drsr.ch/1fll
2. Gray Hammond from BRANDwright Inc.
   

   commented on: August 27, 2012 at 12:21 p.m.
   B2B companies might not see value of social, possibly seeing social as B2C? (And is that view wrong, since B2B purchasers are "people too"?) Any idea of LinkedIn etc. on these firms' sites?
3. Catherine Wachs from Right Brain
   

   commented on: August 28, 2012 at 10:11 a.m.
   Right, Henry. Most large companies abhor loss of control. And with social, there's no surefire ROI. But they are certainly missing the surge of traffic that travels through social networks. Like radio on the eve of the TV, it's where communications are going. The biggest social media mistake a company – large or small – can make is to put a junior or intern in charge of messaging.
4. Stephen G. Barr from SGB Media Group
   

   commented on: September 1, 2012 at 11:49 p.m.
   So that's who's still buying print media ads!

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