Social Media in the Inc. 500: The First Longitudinal Study

Conducted By: Eric Mattson, Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D.

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently conducted one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media in corporations.

The new study compares corporate adoption of social media between 2007 and 2008 by the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private U.S. companies compiled annually by Inc. Magazine. For details about the 2007 Inc. 500 and the complete directory of the included companies, please visit Inc. Magazine's website at www.Inc.com.

This study revisits the Inc. 500 approximately one year later (using the 2007 list) in the first longitudinal study on corporate use of these new technologies.   Given that previous research now shows that just 11.6% of the Fortune 500 currently having a public blog, it is astounding to see that 39% of the Inc. 500 are blogging. The addition of 3.6% more Fortune 500 companies to the blogosphere pales in comparison to the addition of 20% more of the Inc. 500 companies after the same time period.

A further summary and an executive summary of the data are included in the downloads listed on this page.

Downloads

• Social Media in the Inc. 500: The First Longitudinal Study (PDF)
• Social Media in the Inc. 500: The First Longitudinal Study (DOC)

Reactions and Press

• Smaller Firms Web Savvy (New York Times)