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By B.L. Ochman
Back in 2006, I wrote a post wondering why so many large companies were hiding their blogs from their company websites. In 2009, it would have taken Nancy Drew to find the company blog, or Facebook page, or Twitter feed, or all of its YouTube videos.
Now that we’re in the second quarter of 2010, I decided to take a look at the top 10 companies in the Fortune 100 to see if they included their social media involvement on their homepage. Nuh uh. Only three in 10 do.
Call Inspector Clouseau if you want to find the rest.

1. Exxon Mobile No sign of social media on the homepage.
Picture 13.png2. Walmart links to Facebook, Twitter, blogs, community action network.
3- Chevron . No listing of social networks, but there is a Corporate Responsibility tab and a game about safe power.
4- Conoco Phillips’ homepage contains links to twitter, Facebook and YouTube. They’re below the first fold, but at least they’re there.
5 – GE No homepage reference to social media.
6- GM No link to social media involvement
FordSM.jpg7- Ford lists it social media sites in a box on the bottom of the homepage. Ford also has popular, dedicated social media director, Scott Monty on Twitter.
8 – AT&T No social media sites listed.
9 – HP despite having been an early adopter of blogs, has no listing of social media involvement.
10- Valero Energy No social media involvement noted.
This lack of links from corporate homepages belies recent findings that 54% of Fortune 100 uses Twitter; 32% use blogs; 29% have Facebook fan pages, according to a recent study by Burson Marsteller and Proof Integrated Communications (where I am Managing Director of Emerging Media.)
My guess for why social media links are not displayed, even by those who are involved in Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. is that the reasons haven’t changed:
o fear that they’ll lose control of their brand if too many people know they can have a say;
o lack of cooperation between marketing and IT;
o and perhaps pressure from lawyers who are nervous about all this new-fangled new media.
Sigh.