When marketing teams at smaller companies are strategizing the best ways to fuel growth, they can go a few ways: innovate new campaigns, continue to do what’s worked in the past or look for inspiration in other brands’ promotional efforts. Selecting the final route will lead them toward content marketing and social media marketing, according to a University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth study.
More major brands use corporate blogs
As of 2013, approximately 34 percent of the 500 companies on the Fortune 500 list use blog content to keep their sites fresh, provide visitors with interesting reads and nurture leads. This is a significant jump from 2012, when 28 percent of the largest and wealthiest businesses hosted public-facing corporate blogs. Two of the top five corporations were on the list, including Walmart and Exxon.
34 percent of the 500 largest and wealthiest companies use blog content to keep their sites fresh.
It appears that corporate blogging is not only dominated by household names. Brafton previously reported that WordPress has seen its market share increase from 48 percent in 2012 to 52 percent in 2013, indicating a surge in sites using the platform to publish blogs and news stories. In fact, 347 new posts are uploaded every minute.
Companies in the telecommunications industry are ahead of the pack, with 53 percent of those on the 2013 Fortune 500 list producing branded content for corporate blogs. Automotive enterprises seem to have missed the boat. Just 13 percent of Fortune 500s in the motor vehicles and parts sectors create blog content.
Social media marketing surges among Fortune 500s
While large companies have caught onto blogging as a way to promote their products and services through valuable updates, they have taken to social media marketing with even greater enthusiasm.
94 percent of leading commercial bank brands have Twitter accounts.
According to UMass’ data, 94 percent of leading commercial bank brands have Twitter accounts, followed closely by food consumer products companies at 93 percent. Perhaps more poignantly, the sector with low blog adoption rates showed more progressive attitudes toward social networks. More than half of all motor vehicles and parts businesses on the Fortune 500 list use Twitter marketing to achieve their internet marketing goals.
Facebook showed similarly strong penetration rates with large companies. More than 95 percent of specialty retailers post social media content for followers on the network, while 88 percent of telecommunications do the same.
It’s becoming standard practice for brands to create cross-channel marketing strategies in order to stay relevant. Without engaging content and real-time updates, the most common household names risk losing traction to more adept competitors.
