Twitter Fails to Excite Irish Software Co's 

Low Adoption Rates Questions Value Seen in Twitter by Irish Software Companies

According to their second annual research study, Aisling Foley Marketing, a B2B IT marketing agency, usage of the short burst social media channel Twitter has almost doubled among Irish software companies over the last 12 months.  But the volume of adoption remains low and pulls in to question the value seen by Irish software companies in social media.

The 2011 research finds that 51 percent (163) of the 320 Irish-owned software companies surveyed between December 2010 and January 2011, have opened a Twitter account, which includes 42 of those companies surveyed in 2010. A large number of these were opened in February 2010, just after last year's survey results were released. Compared with last year (75 companies), the significant exposure Twitter has received in the last twelve months, and the thousands of software companies in Ireland, there has been a meagre growth at best of around two new accounts per week.

Last year, Aisling Foley (pictured), director Aisling Foley Marketing, commented that the adoption was very low, and, talking to IrishDev.com this morning, she re-iterated that point. "Last year, only half of those companies on Twitter were active . Although the activity figure has grown to 55% this year this still means that only 28 percent of all researched companies are actively using Twitter."

Of the companies actively using the tool, the figure has grown from 13 to 28 percent. She adds: "Our research found that 18% of companies active on Twitter still don't promote it on their company website. It makes a huge difference adding the "Follow us on Twitter" logo to your home and contact web pages. I've seen it with my own clients. Although last year this figure was 37% so things have improved."

The research highlights that both the new accounts and the most active Tweeters seem to be Start-Ups or Early Stage companies, which suggests that the CEO's and marketing departments were of younger stock, who 'got Social Media'.

Foley, a regular Tweeter herself, believes that Irish software brands are missing out on raising their brand awareness. "Twitter isn't necessarily about directly pushing more product. For example, one of my clients were bought last year by a global company. The acquisition put a new product in their portfolio for which they were not recognised. Using Twitter we were able to educate the analysts about the changes."

Forrester Research recently said that any company not creating a social media strategy and setting budgets, allocating resources or setting policy is already behind. Foley said: "I agree. Business and brand awareness can be improved by using Twitter. Another US based company, Hubspot, said that 38% of B2B companies acquired a customer through Twitter."

"I do think it's important for companies to, at the very least, set up Twitter and Facebook accounts and then think about the best ways to use those accounts."

Website Link to Aisling Foley Marketing

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