Social Machinery

The Center for Marketing Research from Massachusetts Dartmouth University just released a new research about Social media adoption from  Inc. 500; a list of the fastest-growing private U.S. companies compiled annually by Inc. Magazine. The new study compares adoption of social media over three years (2007, 2008 and 2009) by the Inc. 500.

In 2007, the Center’s first study of this group and their use of social media was released and revealed that the Inc. 500 was outpacing the more traditional and larger Fortune 500 companies in their use of social media. For example, at that time, some research showed that 8% of the Fortune 500 companies were blogging compared to 19% of the Inc. 500.

 This difference continued in 2008 with 16% of the Fortune 500 blogging vs. 39% of the Inc. 500. And it appears the Inc. 500’s lead in blogging will continue in 2009 with the Inc. 500 now blogging at a rate of 45%. Interestingly, the study shows the astonishing growth of social media as a marketing and communication channel for those successful companies. 91% of these companies have incorporated at least one social media channel during 2009.

Also, 75% of US fastest growing companies reported an increase in their familiarity with social media tools. In the other hand, only 9% of Inc 500 doesn’t use social media, showing a decrease of 43% compared to 2007.

 Below you can find some highlights from the report, showing the dramatic change on the use of corporate social media during the last three years.

1. Social networks

2007: 27%

2008: 49%

2009: 80%

2.Blogs

2007: 19%

2008: 39%

2009: 45%

3.Videos Online

2007: 24%

2008: 45%

2009: 36%

4.Wikis

2007: 17%

2008: 27%

2009: 25%

5.Twitter

2009: 52%

 6.Podcast

2007: 11%

2008: 21%

2009: 12%

7.Doesn’t use Social media

2007: 43%

2008: 23%

2009: 9%

Social media as a source of competitive advantage

Even do Social networking and blogs registered the biggest growth within social media tools for companies, is interesting to see the widespread usage of wikis as a way to share, create and spread knowledge within companies.

Is also important to notice that social media within companies is still mainly focused on text/image media. Podcasts and Videos had shown a sharp decrease in their use as a corporate tool. I believe this should only be a short term trend, but in the mid-term companies will require taking advantage of the whole multimedia inventory to attract customers, stakeholders but also employees.

Center for Marketing Research concludes that social media represents a source of competitive advantage for companies and a good example is to see the intensive web 2.0 activity performed by these 500 fastest growing organizations in the US.

This research proves once again that social media has penetrated parts of the business world at a tremendous speed. It also indicates that corporate familiarity with and usage of social media within the Inc. 500 has continued to grow in the past 12 months