Can you see the writing on my wall?

Currently, there are more than 45 million active user groups on Facebook and more than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day (compared to 4 million users in March 2009). While public relations research has investigated how organizations are using blogs and websites, few have analyzed social networking sites such as Facebook. A content analysis of 55 Facebook member and fan pages was conducted to determine how the 2008 Fortune 50 companies used Facebook. The sites what organizational information was included, use of photos and videos, use of discussion boards, level of engagement, whether the site generated feedback, and whether there was a discussion of community relationships or social responsibility. Overall, most companies in the Fortune 50 were taking advantage of the opportunities of Facebook, but were not utilizing this medium to its fullest extent. While some corporations posted news releases and mission statements, most organizations were not using the site to disseminate news and information about the organization, both internally and externally. Finally, there needs to be more in terms of engagement and relationship-building strategies, as well as incentives to encourage users to revisit the sites.