While growth in usage of social media by the public continues to grow unabated, new research shows that social media usage among large companies is leveling off.
The research from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth shows that corporate use of networks like Facebook and Twitter plateaued in 2011.
The study looked at outward facing social media usage by Fortune 500 companies, and found that adoption of blogs, Twitter and Facebook did not rise from 2010 to 2011.
Just under 1/4 of the Fortune 500 have a public facing blog. While this is an increase from the 16% measured in 2008, it has not increased at all since last year. Likewise, Twitter usage has only increased by 2% in the last year, from 60% last year to 62% this year.
Only 58% of large companies have a Facebook page; however, another 2% rise from last years figure. Astonishingly, 31% have no presence on either Facebook or Twitter at all.
This follows research last week revealing that 1 in 5 small business owners hate social media. Bete noir of the industry was Groupon, with a whopping 70% of SMEs reporting their dislike of the coupon website.