How Companies Twitter in Germany: August 2009 Trend Report

BERLIN, Germany -

- Blätterwald and Zucker. Investigate Twitter Content From More Than 50 International Companies: About Half of all Tweets are in Dialogue. Though, Report Reveals a Lack of Clarity Over Responsibilities for Twitter at Companies

Berlin PR agency Zucker.Kommunikation (www.zucker-kommunikation.de ) and Blätterwald (www.blaetterwald.org), the specialists for media-resonance analysis, have produced the first survey of content produced by companies which communicate by Twitter, such as Volkswagen, BMW, Deutsche Telekom and Lufthansa. Over a period of one week, the way that companies work with the micro-blogging service Twitter was analysed: Half of the tweets arose through dialogue (51%), about one third were news (32%), and 17% of tweets were advertising. However, the proportion of advertising employed by companies listed on the DAX, Germany’s stock exchange, was twice as high. Twitter profiles of German companies and the German subsidiaries of international enterprises display on average 661 followers, they in turn follow 350 other profiles, and they post an average of 13 tweets per week.

“The large number of companies already twittering was frankly a surprise”, comments Oliver Numrich from Blätterwald. “This analysis also shows us that around half of the companies have understood the dialogue-based approach of Twitter, and they are acting accordingly.” Companies do make mistakes with Twitter though, as evidenced by the following figures: The clear majority of companies (80%) send anonymous tweets, i.e. the biography contains no information. Only 12 of the 60 profiles investigated were backed up by a personal twitterer. Most of the tweets (85%) did not address their followers in person. “There is no clear guideline on just who is responsible for Twitter at the majority of companies”, concludes Matthias Bonjer from Zucker.Kommunikation. “The frequent occurrence of anonymous senders, a lack of subject focus of the tweets, and the naming of entire departments as the sender are all clear indicators of this. Furthermore, in very few of the cases that we studied was Twitter dialogue being handled by customer service departments”.

Overall the Trend Report reveals that German companies are far more active on Twitter than is generally assumed. Obviously, Twitter is being taken seriously as a new channel for communications.

More Informations: zucker.newsroom.eu Matthias Bonjer Zucker. Kommunikation GmbH Torstrasse 107, 10119 Berlin Fon +49(30)247-587-0 Fax +49(30)247-587-77 m.bonjer@zucker-kommunikation.de

Source: Zucker.Kommunikation GmbH

More Informations: zucker.newsroom.eu, Matthias Bonjer, Zucker. Kommunikation GmbH, Torstrasse 107, 10119 Berlin, Fon +49(30)247-587-0, Fax +49(30)247-587-77, m.bonjer at zucker-kommunikation.de