Large Asian corporations increase exposure on social networks but engagement remains low: Burson-Mar

Asian companies listed in the Fortune Global 100 show the greatest year-on-year increase in official Facebook presence, though many are still reluctant to engage stakeholders through this platform, according to the Burson-Marsteller Global Social Media Check-up 2011.  The Study examines the Fortune Global 100’s use of popular social networking platforms such as: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, corporate blogs and local and language-specific social media.

While a global increase of 18% in Facebook engagement was driven by a 25% increase in Asian companies on the list building a presence on the social network, Asian companies continue to miss opportunities for engagement with online stakeholders.  While Asian corporate Facebook pages saw a 406% increase in stakeholder “Likes” and 60% of Asian companies in the study allow fan posts to their Pages, only 28% of these pages routinely responded to fan posts.

“While the increase in social media adoption in Asia is in part due to greater investment in this area for local marketing, much of the growth is driven by established Asian multinationals using social media to reach new audiences abroad,” said Bob Pickard, president and CEO of Burson-Marsteller Asia-Pacific.  “We expect to see this trend continue as other Asian companies become more comfortable with the interactive nature of social networks and take the opportunity engage their stakeholders directly on these platforms.”

On Facebook, 74 percent of companies allow users who “like” their page to post on their page “walls,” and more than one-half (57 percent) of companies are responding to these posts and comments. The U.S. companies lead the way on Facebook interaction with 89 percent of companies allowing posts and 72 percent of companies responding back.

In terms of growth of adoption, 67 percent of Asian companies in the Fortune Global 100 are now using at least one social media platform, up from 50 percent 12 months earlier, while the number of U.S. and European companies using social media remained virtually flat at 89 and 84 percent respectively.

“Global companies are now demonstrating greater comfort with the interactive nature of social networks and are more willing to engage their stakeholders directly on these platforms,” said Burson-Marsteller Worldwide CEO Mark Penn.

Other key findings include:

nOne-half (50 percent) of Asian companies on the Fortune Global 100 list now have Facebook pages compared to 40 percent last year. In addition, the average number of “likes” per Asian corporate Facebook page increased 406 percent from 23,971 “likes” to 121,257 “likes.”

nThe percentage of Asian companies in the study with Twitter accounts grew 68 percent from 40 percent in 2010 to 67 percent in 2011. Seventy-seven percent of Asian companies with Twitter accounts are using the “@” mention function to open channels of communication with other users. 62 percent of these Asian companies are re-tweeting content to followers.

n    Eighty-four percent of the companies in this year’s study are active on at least one social media platform considered, compared with 79 percent last year.

n Twenty-five percent of companies are using all four platforms studied, compared to 20 percent in the prior year’s study.

nGlobally, corporate participation in Twitter increased the most (to 78 percent in 2011 from 65 percent in 2010), followed by YouTube (57 percent in 2011 v. 50 percent in 2010), Facebook (61 percent in 2011 v. 54 percent in 2010), and corporate blogging (36 percent in 2011 v. 33 percent in 2010).

nEighty percent of the Fortune Global 100 were being talked about by Twitter account holders, almost twice as many as one year ago (42 percent).  

nOn Facebook, each corporate page boasts an average of 87,979 “likes”, up from 40,884 “likes” in 2010.

Burson-Marsteller Asia-Pacific today includes 31 offices and affiliates in 17 countries integrated seamlessly into a global network operating in 98 countries. The network is represented in Sri Lanka by Strategic Alliance PR headed by Nimal Gunewardena.

About this Study : Data was collected between November 2010 and January 2011 based on Fortune Global 100 companies’ November 2010 social media activity on Twitter or other regional/local microblogging website, Facebook or other regional/local social networking website, YouTube or other regional/local video sharing website, and corporate blogging.  Sample size for countries/regions: U.S. = 32 companies, Europe = 47 companies, Asia-Pacific = 18 companies, Latin America = 3 companies.  Comparisons were made to Burson-Marsteller’s first Fortune Global 100 Social Media Study, The Global Social Media Check-up 2010, published on February 23, 2010.  Impact on results based on changes in the Fortune Global 100 list between 2009 and 2010 were deemed negligible.  Outliers in the data have been noted.  Data was collected by Burson-Marsteller’s global research team.