When it comes to being recognized in the public company domain, Massachusetts is known for being home for two big sectors: technology and finance. With the hit the banking industry took given the recession, technology companies outnumbered finance companies in this years Globe 100. Of the eighty-two best performing Massachusetts public companies in the list, nineteen were in the technology sector, accounting for nearly a quarter of all.
We took a look at the top ten of these technology power-houses to find the three with the best Twitter presences (scroll to the bottom for a snapshot of all ten). Twitter presence here is defined by number of followers, number of tweets, and the quality of those tweets.
Raytheon
NYSE: RTN
Market cap: 16.69B
Main Twitter handle: RaytheonCompany
Globe 100 ranking: 2
Headquarters: Waltham
When you’re producing technology for the Defense Department, you have a bit of an edge in the Twitterverse in that you’ll be announcing some seriously cool, cutting edge devices.
Originally founded by two entrepreneurial engineers in Cambridge in 1922 as American Appliance Company, Raytheon has long-standing Massachusetts roots. Their first product, which essentially eliminated the need for expensive, short-lived batteries that every day households used in radios, was called Raytheon – meaning, “light of/from the gods.” The company soon after took the name, and continues to innovate. Raytheon is now the fourth largest American defense contractor.
Raytheon’s Twitter presence leverages all the cutting edge technology they’re building, most recently their second-generation robotics exoskeleton – that’s right, your real-life Iron Man suit (badass). You’ll also find Raytheon tweeting great content about defense and security. On top of this, Raytheon’s Twitter handle boasts their socially responsible commitment to organizations like Change the Equation that are on a mission to create literacy in and advance science, engineering and math education. Known for phenomenal management trainee programs, Raytheon also actively manages Raytheon_Jobs and RTNCollegeJobs handles to post job fair locations, new openings, and to answer questions from candidates.
With 3,500 followers and well-rounded tweets about their work, their industry, and with professionals in the defense security and education space, Raytheon made our top three. With obvious sensitivity to security and confidentiality, we like the great Twitter base we see for Raytheon and look forward to following them.
VistaPrint
NYSE: VPRT
Market cap: 1.63B
Main Twitter handle: Vistaprint
Globe 100 ranking: 3
Headquarters: Lexington
If you live in Massachusetts you’re bound to either know someone who works at VistaPrint or have benefited from using their services yourself.
Online supplier of printed and promotional materials as well as marketing services, VistaPrint has locked in on serving the small business and consumer market well. They print on average 53,000 orders every day using their patented order aggregation and automation technology. While based in the Netherlands, VistaPrint moved to the States in 2000, selecting Lexington, Mass. as their headquarters so they could employ area software and marketing minds. With help from the Boston-area talent they attracted, VistaPrint went public five years later.
With well over 20,000 tweets and followers of 7,119, VistaPrint boasts the best following and most active accounts of the top ten companies on the Globe 100. Their handle is run by their PR team, and they tweet mainly answers to customer service inquiries. Having served over 17 million customers globally, it is no wonder they also run an active Vistaprinthelp handle that does the same.
While their corporate handle is active, with queries answered multiple times a day, VistaPrint only manages the handle during business hours. And besides answering questions and any tweets mentioning the VistaPrint brand, you won’t find much else from this Twitter account. In any case, they’ve done a great job growing their following, in part due to their great deals, which you can follow separately at VistaprintDeals — most recently offering 10 free cards.
EMC
NYSE: EMC
Market cap: 41.77B
Main Twitter handle: EMCCorp
Globe 100 ranking: 37
Headquarters: Hopkinton
“We believe information is a business’s most important asset” is at the heart of EMC’s mission, so we’re glad to see them in the top three with an expansive Twitter presence.
Founded in Massachusetts in 1979 by Richard Egan and Roger Marino (the “E” and “M”), EMC has put Hopkinton on the map by growing into the largest provider of data storage platforms in the world. EMC has been acquiring companies at a hefty rate since 2003 – even through the recession – which places them on a must-watch list for many Boston-area entrepreneurs.
With over 6,000 followers, EMC’s corporate Twitter handle (from which we measured their reach) is a go-to source for all news and content around information infrastructure, systems, software and services. You’ll be hard pressed to miss any EMC executive’s presentation or blog post – or really anywhere EMC is in the news – by following this handle. Speckled with @-mentions to luminaries in their industry and their employees that adds some great personality, EMC’s corporate Twitter handle is filled with thought leadership and information.
Combined with conference handles like EMCWorld, products like EMCIonix, specific groups like CloudEMC along with handles for their career openings and events, EMC could dedicate a whole directory to navigating their Twitter presence.
Here is a snapshot of all ten of the best-performing public tech companies in Massachusetts on Twitter:
