We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #16

Burson-Marsteller Fortune Global 100 Social Media Study

Burson-Marsteller released the findings of their Fortune Global 100 Social Media Study which looked at the social media usage of the 100 biggest companies on the Fortune 500 list. The study found that 79% of the companies use at least one of the most popular social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs.

Like the Fortune 100 study found, Twitter is the social media platform of choice among the Fortune Global 100. The study found that 65 percent of the largest 100 international companies have active accounts on Twitter, 54 percent have a Facebook fan page, 50 percent have a YouTube channel, and one-third (33 percent) have corporate blogs. Only 20 percent of the major international companies are utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders.

Social media participation by companies varied globally by region, and it appears that large firms are getting more comfortable using social media and are broadcasting less, and engaging more. You can download the complete analysis of these findings as a PDF.

Sony generates over £1m in sales through Twitter
Speaking at the Marketing Week Social Media for Brand Building event, Sony revealed that they generated over £1m in sales through Twitter. Nick Sharples, head of corporate communications has said that Sony sees Twitter “as a viable sales platform, as well as a tool to amplify PR activity.” This revelation by the tech giant echoes the headlines made last December, when Dell announced they had driven US$6.5 million in revenue thanks to Twitter.

Facebook page updates to appear in Google
Last week, Google began indexing status updates from Facebook Pages and including them in its real-time search results. This marks the first time that Google has integrated information from Facebook, and follows similar announcements in recent months that Google had integrated Twitter and MySpace updates in its results.

The information it is allowed to integrate is more limited than the deal the social network has in place with Microsoft’s Bing. Google can only index status updates from Facebook Pages – which are ‘for organisations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner’, according to the network’s own definition, and act more as marketing tools.

Yahoo! signed a deal its own last week with Twitter, “which not only takes in search, but also a deeper integration of the microblogging service’s tools.”