In its annual study of the use of social media among Fortune 500 companies, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth found that Twitter is the most used social media platform in 2013.In total, 77% of Fortune 500 companies have corporate Twitter accounts with at least one tweet published in the last thirty days. That's 7% higher than the percentage of Fortune 500 companies that have a corporate Facebook Page (70%)and 8% higher than the number of Fortune 500 companies that have YouTube accounts (69%). Coming in fourth place is Google+ with 35% of Fortune 500 companies having active Google+ accounts, followed by Pinterest, Instagram, and Foursquare---9% of Fortune 500 companies had accounts with each of these social media platforms.

Fortune 500 Blogs Show Highest Growth in Five Years

A particularly interesting finding from the study shows that 34% of Fortune 500 companies have active blogs, which is up from 23% in 2011 and 28% in 2012. For a medium that has been around much longer than the other social media platforms included in the study, that is an impressive growth rate and represents the largest increase in the use of blogging since 2008. The vast majority of these corporate blogs (79%) are kept current, accept comments, have RSS feeds, and offer RSS subscriptions.The study authors did an interesting comparison between blogging practices among Fortune 500 companies (America's largest companies) and Inc 500 companies (the fastest growing private companies in the United States) and found that 44% of Inc 500 companies had active company blogs in 2012 (the 2013 list of Inc 500 companies will not be released until September). That's significantly higher than the number of Fortune 500 companies with blogs, but the gap is narrowing.Clearly, the importance of publishing fresh and engaging content isn't lost on 34% of Fortune 500 companies who "get" online publishing and its importance in building brands and businesses. The study authors wrote:

"The use of blogging after years of low and stagnant adoption has continued its steady move forward with over one-third now providing original content and using their blogs to promote causes, establish thought leadership, and to better understand their target markets. It is clear that these business titans are choosing from a myriad of new communications tools while continuing to adopt the more mature tool of blogging."

You can see highlights from the study in the infographic below and follow the link to read more details from the full report.

Image: Teresa Howes