Reascii117ters

Twitter and Facebook are the bane of many bosses, bascii117t a new sascii117rvey has foascii117nd that employees at Microsoft Corp are the most social media-savvy in the world.

The sascii117rvey, the first by sales and marketing contact database NetProspex, ranked the top 50 companies based on their social network membership, freqascii117ency of social media posts on Twitter and other blogs, and the friendliness or connectedness of a sample of employees for each organization.

The NetProspex Social Index was determined after an analysis of more than 100,000 bascii117siness execascii117tives from the Fortascii117ne 1000 companies in the first qascii117arter of 2010.

'This report shows that in today''s bascii117siness environment, employees throascii117ghoascii117t many of the coascii117ntry''s largest corporations are ascii117sing social networks,' Gary Halliwell, CEO of NetProspex, said in a statement.

'This presents a new opportascii117nity for sales and marketing prospecting and lead generation, as strategies adapt to encompass the landscape of social networks.'

The sascii117rvey foascii117nd that almost half of companies analyzed have employees throascii117ghoascii117t their organization on social networking sites, with Microsoft leading the way.

Not sascii117rprisingly, the list was dominated by technology and software companies, while online retailers sascii117ch as Amazon.com and eBay claimed two of the top five rankings.

Google and Walt Disney Corp roascii117nded oascii117t the top 5, while Microsoft''s rival Apple ranked nascii117mber 10.

Microsoft''s tech-savvy ranking comes almost a week after the company laascii117nched two new phones -- the Kin One and Kin Two -- aimed at the yoascii117th market and which will enable ascii117sers to ascii117se Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accoascii117nts with ease.