How companies twitter in Germany: August 2009 Trend Report

Berlin (ots) -

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

Originaltext: Zucker.Kommunikation GmbH
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Contact:
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