Interesting report out of the States on how ‘social’ American business really is. The NetProspex team ranked social network activity on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, coming up with something they call the NPSI (NetProspex Social Index) score. It measures things like activity (ex: number of Tweets), connectedness (employees with social media profiles) and friendliness and reach (connections per employee)

Things that caught my eye:

– Banking (3rd) outranked traditional media (4th)

– Pharma ranked a surprising (from a Canadian perspective) 25th – the medical industry didn’t make the top 50

– The tobacco industry isn’t big on Twitter. Neither are funeral homes. They’re more a Facebook industry, apparently.

– Toys & Games = at the top in the consumer category

– CFOs are only slightly more social than admin assistants, payroll and maintenance … meaning not very

– The study ranks companies with the most social employees. HR staff have the most number of “friends”

– B2B employees are social. Non tech B2B businesses aren’t leveraging social media.

– Highest blue collar industry ranked = the trucking, moving and storage industry

… Marketers are more social than HR, which is more social than PR.

The NetProspex Social Index (NPSI) doesn’t include blogging/podcasting. I bet funeral homes would have ranked better if they had 😉

Hat tip to Michelle Blanc for the heads up on this study.