Social media and CSR lead as US corporate websites see improvement

The quality of corporate websites and the wider digital presence of companies in the S&P 100, the NYSE US 100 and the NASDAQ 100 have continued to improve, according to the latest IQ ranking from Investis.

‘The S&P 100 saw the greatest improvement while growth in the NYSE US 100 has slowed. However, the NASDAQ 100 still lags some way behind both indices,’ says the corporate communications firm in a blog post covering the findings.

Investis says the S&P 100 Index is above average for all categories, especially ‘the use of mobile, social media and multimedia and when it comes to CSR and careers content.’ Social media and CSR are standout areas across the NYSE US 100 while ‘there is huge room for improvement’ across every area except social media on the NASDAQ 100.

Despite strong social media performance as a whole, Investis says seven companies on the NYSE US 100 ‘do not use social media for any form of corporate communication’. This rises to 16 companies on the NASDAQ 100. ‘However, 75 percent of [companies on] the index link to a Twitter account, 69 percent use LinkedIn and 66 percent use Facebook for corporate communications,’ the research shows.

The IQ website ranking also looks at the use of webcasting: 95 percent of S&P 100 firms webcast their financials, but not one offers video webcasting. On the NASDAQ 100, 93 percent of companies webcast results, with three firms offering video webcasts.

Across all three indices, Investis says IR content ‘could be much improved.’ It also recommends that companies ‘look hard’ at their ‘about us’ content and compare it with that of firms that do well in this area, such as Coca-Cola.