By Siobhan O’Leary

A survey of 1,700 PR and press professionals conducted by “news aktuell und Faktenkontor”, a subsidiary of the dpa, as reported in the Borsenblatt, reveals that only a third of German companies have developed a specific social media strategy and only one-tenth of them actually put their money where their Tweets are (i.e. budget additional funds for their social media activities). Another 10% admitted that they had not even started to address the issue, while more than half said that they were at least working on it.

Just over 17.3% of those polled felt that communicating via social networks is “important”, while about 45% felt that it is “somewhat important.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, those companies in the business of service providing were much more likely to have a strategy than other firms.