Over the last 12 months, the number of Twitter accounts of Irish software companies has risen to almost double last year’s amount, Aisling Foley Marketing has revealed.
Aisling Foley Marketing has released a study that shows 51pc of the 320 Irish-owned software companies surveyed have opened a Twitter account. Aisling Foley Marketing, which specialises in B2B IT marketing, also discovered that active accounts have risen from 13 to 28pc.
Aisling Foley Marketing conducted the research between December 2010 and January 2011. In 2010, the number was merely 26pc, with only half of those companies active on Twitter. The activity figure grew to 55pc this year, which demonstrates that only 28pc of all researched companies are actively using Twitter.
Aisling Foley, director of Aisling Foley Marketing, stated, “The research also found that 18pc of companies active on Twitter still don’t promote it on their company website.”
She added, “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 37pc so things have improved.”
Forty-two companies of last year’s 289 companies in the survey opened a Twitter account in the last 12 months. Just after last year’s results were published, a large number of these companies decided to open a Twitter account.
Foley also commented, “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 agrees with the findings of Forrester Research and adds, “Business and brand awareness can be improved by using Twitter. Another US-based company, Hubspot, said that 38pc of B2B companies acquired a customer through Twitter.”
The research also shows that 74pc of the companies are Dublin-based, the remainder are outside of Dublin, but within the Republic of Ireland.
