public relations…social media…commmunications…marketing. Repeat.

According to leading public relations and communications firm, Burson-Marsteller, 84 percent of Fortune Global 100 U.S. companies surveyed use at least one social media platform and 34 percent use all four major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and corporate blogs together in their communications efforts.

Overall Growth.
Overall, the report showed there was an 18 percent increase in Fortune Global 100 companies using Twitter, followed by a 14 percent growth in YouTube channels and a 13 percent growth in companies using Facebook fan pages. Although Twitter is being used more by corporations, businesses using Facebook fan pages have more “likes” than Twitter accounts have “followers.”

Overall Twitter Highlights:

• With a 68 percent year-over-year increase, Asian corporations led the way with the largest growth in total amount of corporate accounts.
  • Overall growth: 18 percent
• Seventy-six percent more companies use the “@” response in tweets and direct messages, indicating more companies are engaging with their audience on the social site.
• The average number of followers per corporate account increased by 241 percent increase in 2010.
  • U.S. corporations saw a 61 percent increase.
• More than one-third of corporate accounts are tweeting to keep consumers informed about deals or contests specifically related to their products/services.
• There was a 90 percent increase in the number of companies being talked about on Twitter over the last year.

Overall Facebook Highlights:

• There was a 13 percent increase in corporations on Facebook.
• With 89 percent of fan pages allowing posts from “likers” and 72 percent of pages responding to “likers” posts, U.S. companies led the way in Facebook interactivity.

Overall YouTube Highlights:

• YouTube saw a 69 percent increase in the average number of channels per corporation globally.
  • This overall growth was led by the 192 percent increase among U.S. channels.
• On average, U.S. corporations received nearly 716,000 views in 2010.

Overall Blog Highlights:

• With a 29 percent increase, the total number of U.S. corporate blogs saw the greatest leap.

What does this mean?
Companies are leveraging social media as interactive platforms. What was once considered a here today, gone tomorrow tool, is now a mainstream means of communication between companies and their audiences on a global scale. The next step is to reinforce the value of two-way communication between company and target audience. Although more companies are heading to the social media space, all too many are still using it as a billboard instead of a way to engage in and monitor conversation about their brand.

For the complete results from this report, click the PowerPoint below.