US companies use social media better than UK firms, says Investis study
UK companies are one step behind their US compatriots when it comes to corporate communications and social media, according to a report from Investis.
The study reviewed more than 500 leading US and UK companies to score their use of eight social media channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube and found that US companies were far more active and engaged on social media.
The average volume of tweets from a US corporate account was 2,979 in a year dwarfing the UK’s 738. On LinkedIn, US firms saw three times as many posts as UK firms. YouTube saw a similar trend with US firms boasting 141 videos in comparison with the UK’s 45.
Similarly, on Facebook, US companies achieved an average of 45,111 likes, compared with the UK’s 1,177. LinkedIn proved to be the most popular social channel for companies with 93 per cent of studied firms owning such an account, in comparison, only two thirds of companies had Twitter accounts.
The highest-scoring company across all eight channels was Cisco Systems. However, the UK claimed two of the top ten firms with Royal Dutch Shell (fourth) and BP (tenth).
Marcus Fergusson, research director at Investis, said: “This is the most comprehensive review of the use of social media for corporate communications that has ever been conducted. The big surprise is the difference in approach between American and British companies.
“Too many FTSE 350 companies are failing to post content regularly and they are not posting a broad enough range of content. As a result, UK companies are failing to engage their audience with the same success as US companies. Social media is now an integral part of the corporate communications mix and corporate content drives social media engagement.”
Below are the 25 top scoring firms.
Investis ranked companies using 250,000 data points including content range, audience size and engagement with followers.