Missing out?
Around 60 of the FTSE 100 companies do not have any indication of having a social media presence on their corporate websites, despite around half of the UK's 100 most highly capitalised firms using some type of social media, a new report found.
According to The Telegraph, which got exclusive access to the research from corporate communications firm Radley Yeldar, just 29 FTSE 100 firms have a main corporate page on Facebook, while 54 out of the 100 firms have a Twitter feed and 31 have a YouTube channel.
The survey reportedly found that the companies were only using the social platforms in an ad-hoc manner, with many seemingly having a type of obligatory presence.
According to the research, while 98 of the FTSE 100 firm have a presence on at least one social network, by not flagging this up on their own website, they are missing the value of such networks.
Commentators reportedly believe that while the wesbites of such big companies do not have to rely on social media for traffic, they do need to adopt social media to get a dialogue going about their work with the world instead of just ‘talking at' its audience, which has become rather old hat.
Richard Coope, head of digital at Radley Yeldar, reportedly believes that companies that have failed to link their social networking presence with their corporate website are missing out on ‘big conversations' and are still just churning out press releases.
"It comes down to a paradigm shift in communication. The corporate monologue has been the way the FTSE 100 companies have communicated for so long - it is a very slow process to adapt to the nature of corporate dialogue," he reportedly said.
"Trust has been eroded in corporate companies and if these brands don't adopt fully integrated social media strategies, they will miss out on the opportunity to connect and engage. Regular people use networks like Facebook as a trusted form of communication because it's peer to peer. These companies need to become part of that conversation. The survey raises the question as to whether companies are really committed to open and trusted dialogue," he apparently added.
The research also reportedly found that just 16 of the 29 FTSE firms with Facebook pages updated their corporate profiles every week and 19 put the effort into responding to posts and engage with readers.
Similarly it also reportedly revealed that 23 of the 54 companies that use Twitter regularly tweet and 22 of them just spew out mini press releases and corporate material with no attempt to make it interesting or inject some personality.
