How Companies Twitter in Germany: August 2009 Trend Report

Blatterwald 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, Germany, September 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Berlin PR agency
Zucker.Kommunikation (http://www.zucker-kommunikation.de ) and Blatterwald
(http://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 Blatterwald. "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@zucker-kommunikation.de