Spun Digital - Finding customers online

Twitter is the fastest growing social media channel among the Fortune 500, according to new research. The study conducted by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) reveals use of blogs, online video and podcasts has continued to increase among the Fortune 500 - the world's top performing companies - but Twitter is the overall social media channel of choice. Some 22 per cent of the primary corporations listed in the 2009 Fortune 500 have a public-facing corporate blog, a six per cent increase on 2008, the SNCR found. A further 86 per cent of these blogs link directly to a corporate twitter account - a massive 300 per cent increase on the previous year. Of the top 100 companies, nearly 50 per cent have a Twitter account - 35 per cent of which are classed as active (having posted within the last 30 days). And the industry with the most Twitter accounts is the insurance sector. Commenting on the SNCR study, SEO specialist Nathan McDonald noted that an increasing number of people working in website promotion were beginning to wake up to the benefits of social media, particularly Twitter. However, he stressed the importance of integrating social media campaigns with other website marketing ventures in order to maximise their potential. To get the best results, Mr McDonald also advised businesses to devise a solid strategy for social media campaigns before launching them. "The approach to Twitter should also bear in mind your blogging or Facebook strategy and all of that should follow the same tone of voice and communication strategy that you deploy for PR, advertising and even direct marketing," he said. Last week Twitter announced it had hit 50 million tweets per day, surpassing MySpace's popularity on the web. According to a recent post on Twitter's official blog (February 22nd), the number of tweets posted per day has grown 10,000 times since 2007 with an average of 600 tweets posted per second.